


As an Ember

by madsthenerdygirl



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Anastasia AU, Based on the Broadway Musical, I Wouldn't Call This an Angsty Fic, Intense Descriptions of PTSD, Melancholy Fic, More of a Bittersweet Fic, Multi, Playing Fast and Loose with History Here, Trash ot3, Wyatt Logan's Bisexuality Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-22 17:11:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17063762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsthenerdygirl/pseuds/madsthenerdygirl
Summary: Desperate to get out of communist Russia, conmen Garcia Flynn and Rufus Pobeditel devise a plan: get a girl to pose as the lost Princess Lyusya and convince the Grand Duke that she’s his granddaughter. But the communist regime has sent one of their best agents after the lost princess, and the girl they choose has far more to her than meets the eye.Conman, communist, and a not-so-common girl are all on a collision course. And none of them are going to be the same by the end.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [captainofthefallen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainofthefallen/gifts).



> Names have been changed in some cases to help them to fit in Russia. For example, Jessica is not a Russian name and does not have a Russian equivalent. However, Jessica means ‘rich’, so in this fic, her name is changed to Darya, which is Russian for ‘wealthy’. Carlin, meanwhile, means 'champion', so Rufus's last name has been changed to 'Pobeditel' meaning 'winner, champion, victorious'.

_“Grandpapa!”_

_I can still see her in my dreams, you know._

_She runs to me in her little blue dress, her dark hair, her big smile… she wasn’t the youngest in my son’s family, she was the second youngest, but I still called her my Little One. My Lyusya._

_“Grandpapa, must you go back to Paris?”_

_I scoop her up into my arms. “Oh, Lucy, yes, I’m sorry.”_

_“But why?” She lays her head on my chest. “You love to be here with us, don’t you?”_

_Lyusya’s elder brothers, Nicholas and Venyamin, I am not so fond of. They are too much like my son, Venyamin’s namesake. But baby Amy is sweet enough and Lyusya… Lyusya is the apple of my eye._

_“Paris is where I can be happy,” I tell her. It’s where my… peculiar tastes can find some dark corners of safety._

_“Then I must go to Paris with you,” Lyusya declares._

_I laugh. “Well, that works out, because I have a present for you.”_

_I take out the small necklace and hold it out to here. “It’s a music box. Watch closely.” I show her the key you put in the lock—twist it three time to the right and press on a particular spot for it to open. A tiny ballerina pops out, and music plays._

_“Our lullaby!” Lyusya clasps the necklace close. “Soon you’ll be, safe with me, once upon a December…”_

_I laugh through the tears in my eyes. “Yes, that’s exactly it. Look, here’s the key. See how it says, ‘Together in Paris’?” She nods. “That’s my promise to you. I’ll take you to Paris soon. Until then keep both safe, my little one.”_

_“I promise, Grandpapa.”_

_That’s the last time I ever see her._

_The last time before they… they storm the palace, those animals, and they drag my darling granddaughters through the snow and the cold and they—they—_

_Sometimes at night I think I hear her voice._

_"Soon you’ll be, safe with me…_

_Once upon a December…"_

* * *

_December, 1920_  

 

“God, I fucking hate this city,” Rufus declared.

“You say that every morning,” Flynn replied, even though in a way he agreed.

Part of him still loved St. Petersburg—and he did mean St. Petersburg, not fucking Leningrad. But he hated what it had become, and the way everyone scuttled about like scared rats, and he hated the Bolsheviks, and how nobody had enough to eat and was cold and miserable just like under the Romanovs except with the added fun of everybody turning their neighbors in for not being ‘communist enough’.

But everyone was equal now, right, comrade?

God it made him sick.

He pulled his coat tighter around him as they walked past a knot of street sweepers whispering together.

“The princess…”

“Shh!”

“But they’re _saying_ …”

“Doesn’t matter what _they’re_ saying, if the police hear you…”

Flynn paused. “Pardon me, what were you saying? Something about the princess?”

The group jumped in fear, saw it was him, and relaxed. Everyone knew “Misha” Flynn was to be trusted with not-so-legal things. “People are saying the princess Lyusya might actually have escaped the Bolsheviks,” one of them whispered. “Her grandfather, the Duke Ethan Feodoroff, he’s offering a reward if anyone can give him information on her—or bring the princess herself to him.”

Flynn raised his eyebrows. “That has to be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Maybe, but the duke believes it.”

“If that girl is alive, and she has any sense, she’ll stay hidden. Anonymous. If the Bolsheviks find out she escaped…”

“Hey, we don’t know. We’re just passing on what we heard.”

Flynn turned away—and saw Rufus with a telltale hopeful look on his face. “Oh no.”

“Jiya’s in Paris,” Rufus whispered. “Flynn, if we could—”

“No. No way. Too risky.”

“We said we’d get out. It’s been too long, Flynn, I have to get to her.”

Flynn sighed, taking in his friend’s face. Rufus had lost… well, he’d lost what the rest of them had in the revolution: everything.

But he still had Jiya, who’d escaped. Rufus had told her to go to Paris to find Connor Mason, an enterprising English businessman who’d made friends with Rufus when Mason had visited the royal palace back in the day. _Tell him I sent you,_ Rufus had told her. _He’ll keep you safe._

Flynn couldn’t deny his friend the one person he loved, the one person who’d survived.

“So, what, we… we find a girl—not just any girl, though, one with the right look and who’s trainable.”

“We get her to play the part… get her to Paris…”

“We collect a tidy sum of reward money, and you reunite with Jiya…”

“And we’re home free. We can start new lives anywhere, Flynn, anywhere. You could—I don’t know, you could finally see your homeland. Either of them.”

Unknown to most, Flynn wasn’t Russian. His first name wasn’t even Mikhail, as most people assumed given his common nickname of Misha. His father was from Dubrovnik and his mother had been from New York City. America.

The idea that he’d finally be out of this fucking place, this fucking city that had claimed the lives of all he knew and loved…

“All right, we’ll do it. Let’s find ourselves a princess.”

Rufus’s grin made it all worth it.

 

* * *

 

_“You forgot me!” the blonde girl is screaming. “You don’t care, you forgot me, today’s my birthday and you forgot all about me!”_

_“I didn’t, I didn’t, I swear—tell me who you are, tell me who you are!”_

_“You don’t love me, you forgot me, you don’t love me!”_

Lucy sat bolt upright, the girl’s screams still ringing in her ears.

Dawn was just starting up over the horizon. Time to get to work.

Lucy did her best to push the dream out of her head as she got up and began the long day’s work. Being a street sweeper was far from glamorous but it was good, honest pay. At least until she could figure out how the fuck she was supposed to get to Paris, and what the fuck she was going to do once she got there.

This wasn’t the first time she’d had that dream.

If only she could remember the girl’s name, or even just her face. It faded every time Lucy woke up. The girl was part of figuring out who she was, who she had been, before the memories got all black and fuzzy and jumbled. She'd been saying something about her birthday... Lucy had looked at the calendar. January 23rd. Nothing about that rang a bell, just another day, and yet...

There had to be some way to jog her memory, something that would kick start it, there had—

She ran smack into someone. “Oh my God, I’m so sor—”

The rest of her apology died in her throat as she looked up and realized she was speaking to a Bolshevik.

A Master Sergeant, at that.

“Whoa, there.” He grabbed her shoulders gently, steadying her. “It’s all right, ma’am.” He gave her a crooked smile.

“Pretty sure we’re the same age,” Lucy replied. People got promoted quick in the Bolsheviks. “So you can drop the ‘ma’am’.” She knew she shouldn’t talk to an officer like that, that she should be respectful, but apparently she’d been born with this… feeling that people should be respecting her, instead.

“Whatever you say, ma’am.” The man’s smile didn’t dim. “My name’s Logan. And yours?”

“Logan? That’s not Russian.”

“Ah, no. My father was Scottish, member of the communist party there, came over here to help with the revolution. Made a name for himself, married a Russian woman, and ta-da.” Logan gestured at himself. He was… rather good looking, in a soft kind of way that took her aback. Most Bolshevik officers seemed to make a career out of being stern.

Logan cleared his throat. “So, uh, street sweeping, huh? Good, good honest job, doing your part for our city.”

Lucy stared at him. Was he… flirting with her? “I suppose,” she said slowly. “I have to get back to my work.”

Logan blushed. He _was_ flirting with her. “Ah, yes of course, yes, um, what—what was your name?”

Well, she supposed there was no harm in giving it. And he was cute, even if he was a member of the police. “Lucy.”

“Lucy. It’s a sweet name, simple. I like it.”

“I’m sure my parents took your opinion into deep consideration when they were naming me.”

Logan’s blush got even deeper. “Right I’ll just… leave you to it.”

He hurried off and Lucy tried to focus back on her work. Attention, even good attention, from the police was dangerous. Everyone knew that.

It was a pity, because he really did seem sweet.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt Logan had overcome a lot in his life. His decidedly non-Russian name (thanks, Dad), his father’s legacy and early death, Darya’s death shortly after…

What he had yet to overcome was his absolutely horrible romantic track record.

He had two notches on his bedpost so far. One was Darya, and that had ended with her death. The second was—well, it didn’t matter and it didn’t count and it was behind him, whatever.

And now he’d just made an ass of himself in front of Lucy.

He’d been struck the moment he ran into her. Rich dark hair, a pretty face with sharp features, and distinctive brown eyes. Eyes that actually kind of reminded him of something, or someone, but he couldn’t think what, exactly.

“Logan.” It was Davyd. “The general wants to see you.”

Oh, fuck.

Wyatt hurried up to the general’s office. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

“Ah, Logan.” He gestured for Wyatt to sit. “You’ve been doing an admirable job lately.”

“Thank you sir.”

“A credit to your father’s legacy. He was not born here but he did more in service to the Motherland than many of her children.”

“That he did, sir, he wanted to see this land free.”

“It is a pity he did not live long enough to see that dream realized. But you are here, and you have a rare opportunity to fill his shoes.”

“Sir?”

The general sat down, steepling his fingers together. “You have heard the rumors, I am sure. About the princess?”

“They seem impossible to stamp out, sir.”

“Yes. It makes one worry if there is truth to the tale.”

Wyatt swallowed. “Sir there—there can’t be. All the Romanovs are dead. My father wouldn’t have—he did his duty.” Rumors were just to give the people something to talk about. Everyone knew the Romanovs, and pretty much their entire household, had been shot on July 17th at Ipatiev House. If someone really had survived, it wouldn't have taken them two years to come forward, would it?

“I’m sure he did, or thought he did. But you understand we must make an investigation.”

“And you wish for me to investigate?”

“It is a high honor, Logan.”

Translation: You can’t refuse this.

“Of course, sir. I would be happy to look into it.”

“Good. You will do your country proud, I am sure.”

Wyatt’s stomach twisted. He wasn’t sure about this—this idea of hunting down and, well, terrifying everyone into shutting up. Didn’t the people have to deal with enough? But at the same time… well, rumors had to be stopped. The Romanovs were gone, the old days were gone, and it was time people accepted that. And if, like a teacher with unruly students, the law had to get stern at times, then wasn’t that the law's job?

Wyatt stood. “I’ll take care of it, sir. You can count on me.”

 

* * *

 

Mason walked down the richly carpeted hall of the Paris apartment, quiet, outwardly serene.

Inside, he was far from it.

Jiya was standing outside the door as he approached. “How is he?”

The young woman bit her lip, then shook her head. “He made the last girl run out crying.”

“Oh, dear.” Ethan had gotten not only more impatient, but more cruel, with each imposter who came to him. Not that Mason couldn’t sympathize with his close friend, but many of these girls were simply desperate for money and opportunity. One could hardly blame them. Who didn’t dream of possibly, one day, being called a princess?

Mason steeled himself and opened the door.

Ethan was pacing up and down in front of the fireplace. Once his friend had, despite his age, remained vigorous and handsome. Now he seemed to have aged twenty years, his face, his very frame, betraying a deep exhaustion and sadness.

Sadness that, Mason feared, had become bitterness.

“I really did think she would be the one, Ethan,” Mason said. He and Jiya screened all the girls first, trying to weed them out.

Ethan snorted derisively. “They’re good liars, Connor, what do you expect?”

They had gotten close enough to use Christian names long ago, back when Ethan had gotten help from Connor in finding… certain houses in Paris that catered to certain tastes. That had been around the time Ethan had stopped going by his Russian name and asked to be called a more Western name instead. Shedding his old identity and becoming who he felt he was supposed to be, who he was free to be in his old age, no longer shackled to political responsibilities.

“Well, we can try again tomorrow…”

“No.” Ethan cut him off with a tone of finality that made Mason’s heart sink. “No, Mason. I shall see no more girls.”

“But your grace, rumors this strong don’t come from thin air.”

“Be that as it may—perhaps some enterprising servant girl from the palace in the old days made it up. I don’t know and I don’t care. I can’t—I can’t stand here one more time and let my heart be broken, get my hopes up only to have some nitwit come in and dash them all to pieces again.” Ethan sank into his chair. “She’s—my darling girl, she’s gone. And it’s… it’s time I accepted that.”

Mason found that his eyes were warm and wet and he blinked rapidly. “If it’s really what you want.”

“It is.” Ethan pulled the small music box out of his pocket, the one he never opened, and stared at it for a moment. Then he set it up on the mantle. “Dismiss them all. The search for Lyusya must be called off.”

“Of course.”

Mason exited the room, leaving Ethan alone with his grief, shutting the door behind him.

“He can’t really be giving up,” Jiya whispered.

“I’m afraid so, my dear.” Mason scrubbed at his face. “All right. From now on, we meet the girls somewhere discreet. Make sure they don’t come here.”

Jiya’s eyes went wide. “We’re still going to see them?”

“Oh, yes, we are. Ethan’s given up hope but that doesn’t mean we have to.”

“He’ll be furious if he finds out.”

“Yes. But he’ll be overjoyed if we find her, and that’s worth the risk.” He hadn’t gotten anywhere in this life by playing it safe. “Are you with me?”

Jiya grinned. “Of course I am.”

“Then let’s get started.”


	2. Chapter 2

Lucy’s run-in with Logan made her more certain than ever—she had to find a way out of this city and to Paris. Nothing against Logan, personally, but something about the Bolsheviks awoke a primal terror in her that she could neither explain nor escape. It made her chest ache painfully.

But how to get out of Russia? The borders were closed.

Lucy sat in the small apartment she shared with several other girls, turning her little key over and over in her fingers. It was all she had from her past life.

_Together in Paris._

Someone was waiting for her there. Someone loved her enough to give her this lovely key on a necklace chain to remind her. She had to get to them. Maybe this person was the little blonde girl she kept dreaming about.

“What’s that?”

It was Anya, one of the other girls. Lucy showed it to her. “Someone gave it to me.”

“It’s beautiful. Are you going to go?”

“I don’t know how.”

Anya winked at her. “Ask Misha.”

“Misha?”

“Misha Flynn. He works out of the old theatre. Talk to him, he can get you a passport.”

Lucy hugged her, surprised at her own outburst of emotion. “Thank you,” she whispered.

She didn’t know how she’d pay this Flynn, but she’d figure it out.

She’d get to Paris, no matter what.

 

* * *

 

Flynn didn’t have anyone in particular in mind for Lyusya, so they held auditions, the word discreetly passed from one person to another. He knew it was a long shot to find someone who looked exactly like her. He could remember her, when he thought back. The oddly solemn and regal air despite her young age. The surprising lightness in her smile and the way it transformed her face. The sharp brown eyes, the cheekbones, the wide mouth, the petite frame, the thick, shining dark hair.

But surely. _Surely_ , the girls auditioning had to know that they had to at least look somewhat like her.

So six foot tall blondes need not apply.

“This is hopeless,” Rufus whispered after they politely showed another girl out. “What the hell are we supposed to do if we can’t find a good imposter?”

“We’ll figure something out,” Flynn vowed. Now that the idea was in his mind, he couldn’t let it go. Finally getting out of this stinking city and being free… he couldn’t give up now.

Rufus sighed, shuffling the papers showing all the girls they’d seen. “We can’t pull this off if she’s not right. She has to be perfect, Flynn, absolutely perfect.”

“I know, and she will be. We’ll—”

“H-hello?”

Both men turned.

A young woman stood there, her thick dark hair falling around her face, putting her half in shadow. “I’m sorry I—I heard this was where I could find Misha Flynn?”

Flynn stood up. “That’s me. And you are?”

The girl stepped forward, tucking her hair behind her ear. She wore a thick, old coat that swallowed up her petite frame, but her face was now in the light and Flynn’s breath caught.

She was beautiful. But more than that…

The sharp cheekbones, the wide mouth, the eyes, dear God the eyes… and the oddly solemn air about her, the way she carried herself…

“Rufus,” Flynn whispered.

“I know,” Rufus whispered back. “Jesus her eyes…”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware I was dealing with a mute,” the girl said, folding her arms and raising an eyebrow.

“Ah, sorry,” Rufus said, when it was clear Flynn still couldn’t find his tongue. “I’m Rufus. This here is Flynn. And you are?”

“Lucy.”

“Lucy… that’s a diminutive, right? Or a nickname?”

“It’s my name.”

“No family name?”

“No.” Lucy paused. “I don’t… um… I don’t know my family. Is that bad? Do I need to know them to get a passport?”

“You want a passport,” Flynn said slowly.

“Yes. I was told you were the man to go to.” Lucy crossed quickly to him. “I need to get to Paris, as soon as I can. I—I don’t have much, I don’t have anything actually but I’ll find a way to pay you, I promise. I can, I can cook, and clean, and…”

“Take a breath before you pass out,” Flynn commented when it seemed like the poor girl would run out of breath and just collapse.

Lucy glared at him, her mouth snapping shut. “Just tell me how to earn my keep. I need a passport.”

“Passports to Paris aren’t easy to make,” Flynn pointed out. “Especially with the government changing them all the time.”

“Any chance your, ah, source is still available?” Rufus asked.

Flynn glared at him. “I told you, that source dried up.”

“I don’t know, maybe that source started flowing again.”

“That source wouldn’t know how to flow if it was given a fucking road map.”

Lucy cleared her throat. “I’m still here.”

Flynn looked back at her. “My point is, Lucy No-Family-Name, you’re going to have to really make it worth my while to do this.”

“I won’t sleep with you.”

Flynn choked on his own spit, feeling his eyes bug out. “That’s not—I—I didn’t—” Oh, Jesus. “I don’t _want_ to sleep with you. I hadn’t even thought about it and frankly I’m appalled you thought I did.”

“…so your staring at me when I walked in that was just, what, how you look at people? Like we’re carnival sideshows?”

“You startled me. It wasn’t because I thought you were… anything. You’re not anything.”

“I’m not anything. Wow.”

Rufus counted on his fingers. “You should write a book. _How to Offend a Woman in Five Syllables or Less_.”

“Shut up, Rufus.”

“So?” Lucy huffed. “Stop being all mysterious and cryptic. If you’re going for menacing it’s not working. Are you going to help me or not?”

“Yes,” Rufus said.

“Maybe,” Flynn said.

He glared at Rufus. Rufus glared back.

“We might,” Flynn said at last, “be in a position to help you. You see, you’re… ah… um… there was a reason we stared when you walked in. Has anyone ever told you that you look remarkably like a certain palace portrait?”

“Nobody’s told me I look like a long-dead pompous fat monarch, no.”

Flynn clenched his jaw. This woman was ridiculous. “Lyusya. You look like Princess Lyusya.”

That made Lucy stare at him. “You’re insane.”

“You’ve heard the rumors.”

“But I’m—I’m not—that is—you’ve got to be joking.”

“You saw all those other girls leaving, right? We’ve been trying to find her.”

Rufus got a look on his face that said he’d clearly noticed Flynn’s choice of words and that he didn’t agree with them, but he said nothing.

“Find her, why?”

“Because she’s as good an excuse as any to get out of here,” Flynn replied. “And because…” He paused, looked at Rufus.

“My girl’s in Paris,” Rufus said. “She’s with the Grand Duke. But I can’t get to her, or the duke’s household, without good reason.”

“Someone’s waiting for me in Paris,” Lucy whispered. She took out a small key and showed it to them. Sure enough, written on it in gold script it said, _Together in Paris_.

“Who?” Flynn asked, curious.

“I don’t know,” Lucy admitted. “I don’t… remember. I can’t remember much of anything.”

“And your name is Lucy,” Rufus pointed out. “And you look like the princess. Who’s to say that you’re not?”

“The princess was shot,” Lucy replied.

Flynn tried not to look at Lucy’s chest, where the gunshots would have fired. No, the princess was dead, she had to be, but this girl—this girl might be distantly Romanov, to look so much like Lyusya. The child of a bastard, or something.

“Nobody knows what happened,” Flynn countered. “Not for certain. Everyone who was there is dead.”

“And what if we get there and we’re wrong?”

“Then we part ways, no harm done, and you can find the person waiting for you in Paris,” Flynn said airily.

Lucy narrowed her eyes. “And how will we prove that I’m Lyusya if I don’t remember anything?”

Flynn pulled the journal out of his pocket. “Rufus was a servant in the palace, and his mom was a lady in waiting. He knows everything about the Romanovs. And I have this.”

He held the journal out. Lucy took it tentatively, flipping through it. “It’s a child’s journal.”

“Lyusya’s journal. I found it in the wreckage.” Back when he was younger and stupid—or more stupid than nowadays, anyway—and searching desperately for a sign that maybe the girl who’d so captivated him had, just maybe, made it out alive. “There are details in here that nobody else knows. If you study it, you’ll know what to say to convince the Duke, and hopefully it’ll jog your memory.”

Lucy handed it back to him. “This sounds like lying.”

Flynn raised an eyebrow at her. “Do you want to get to Paris or not? You don’t know that you’re not the princess. There’s no harm in trying.”

Lucy pondered him for a long moment, like a queen passing judgment on whether he was going to be executed or not. Then she held out her hand. “Deal.”

Flynn shook it. “Deal.”

Well, they had their girl at last.

 

* * *

 

This was the most fun Rufus had had in ages.

“Flynn?” Lucy asked, her eyes big and dark and guileless, “Do you really think I’m a princess?”

Flynn’s cheeks went pink. “Ah—of course I do. You know that.”

Lucy’s eyes snapped like firecrackers. “Then stop ordering me around!”

Flynn looked like he’d just had a cold fish shoved down his throat. Rufus choked back his laughter and wrote in his notebook:

_Flynn – Three_

_Lucy – Ten_

The training lessons in etiquette, Romanov family history, and dancing—among other things—were not going so well. Some things Lucy picked up perfectly. At one point while Rufus was arguing with Flynn, Lucy gave a curtsy so elegant and effortless that Flynn had looked like he might pass out.

Oh, yeah, watching Flynn get an unbearable crush on the girl, that was fun too.

But other things Lucy just couldn’t seem to keep in her head. It frustrated her, made her beat herself up, or go off and disappear for hours at a time.

Overall, though, watching Flynn finally meet his goddamn match?

“You’re still not walking right—you have to _glide_.”

“If you know so much about it then you be the princess. You’re certainly stuck up enough for it.”

“ _I’m_ stuck up!?”

Priceless.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt didn’t like what he was hearing.

Rumor had it that of all people, of all goddamn lying two-faced enterprising mentally deranged people in this city, Misha fucking _Flynn_ had found the princess.

Of course, it was a rumor, but it was Wyatt’s job to track it down—and if he got an excuse to punch Flynn in the face well then so much the better.

Not that he had a personal vendetta or anything.

What he liked even less than that, though, was the fact that he was hearing that… that Lucy, his Lucy—not that she was his, or anyone else’s, but specifically the girl he had met, Lucy—that she was the one with Flynn.

It made cold fear slide into his gut like a snake. He had a duty, and he’d carry out that duty, he would, but… but he didn’t want to have to…

He waited until he saw her street sweeping again to approach her. “Lucy?”

She looked up, starting a little. “Logan.”

“Please, call me Wyatt.”

“Wyatt.” She smiled at him. “What can I do for you?”

“I, um, I was just, I heard you were staying with a guy named Flynn now?”

“Yes. I’m helping as a… a maid of sorts, I guess you could say, in exchange for lodging. I get a room all to myself and I don’t pay rent this way.”

“That sounds really nice. He’s at the theatre, right? You should get a nice view of the river there.”

“It’s beautiful, at sunset.”

“My room’s got a view of the palace, actually, it’s… it’s nice, at sunset when the light hits the windows, makes you think all the rooms are lit up again. You should walk by sometime, stop and take a look.”

“I should.”

Lucy was still smiling at him, which he thought was a good thing, and maybe it was her smile, or the fact that they’d been talking about the palace, or the fact that she wasn’t looking at him with fear anymore, but suddenly—suddenly he knew, he knew why she looked familiar, he saw it—he saw it in _her eyes_ …

Wyatt grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into the shadow of a building. “Lucy. Lucy what are you doing with Flynn, what are you really doing—”

“Wyatt let go you’re hurting me—”

He let go of her, surprised at how hard he was breathing. “Lucy listen to me. _Listen_ to me. I don’t know what he’s promised you, but you’re in danger if you keep this up. Do you have any idea the kind of fire you’re playing with?”

Lucy looked scared, but she raised her chin defiantly. “I don’t know if you have any idea the kind of fire you’re playing with right now.”

Wyatt’s stomach churned, absolute terror seizing his heart. If she really was—if she _was_ —then his superiors would order her killed without a second thought, they might even drag her out for a public—a horribly public—

“Lucy, please, just—just promise me. Promise me you’ll be careful.”

Some of his real fear must’ve shown through, because Lucy softened. “If it means that much to you, then yes, I promise I’ll be careful.”

“Good.” Wyatt nodded. He wanted to touch her, but—but he didn’t dare. “I’m—I’m sorry I scared you, I just—there are cruel people in this world, this world is cruel, and I—I’d hate to see you hurt.”

“From who?” Lucy asked. “Would you hurt me?”

He didn’t know the answer to that. Her death—Lyusya’s death—had been for the good of the Motherland. What was one life against the good of an entire nation?

And yet…

“I’ve taken you away from your work. I should let you get back to that. Please, think about what I’ve said. Think about what you’re doing.”

He hurried away, his chest still cold, cold, cold.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darya = Jess  
> Larisa = Lorena

Flynn was walking home after standing in line for an hour to get bread (an hour, to get bread, welcome to the fucking utopian regime) when he bumped into someone.

“’Scuse me,” he muttered. Bolshevik officers walked around like they owned the damn place…

The guy paused. “ _Flynn_.”

Flynn whipped around. “Logan.”

They stared at each other for a moment. Last time Flynn had seen Wyatt Logan, the guy had told him he wouldn’t offer him a last drink if Flynn was in front of a firing squad.

…this was right after Flynn had told Logan that there were surgeries to get rid of the stick up his ass but no medical procedure in the world could help him get a desperately needed personality transplant, so.

Flynn’s blood boiled. “Lucy told me you scared her.”

“I wasn’t trying to scare her,” Wyatt replied, “I was trying to warn her.”

“Why were you trying to warn her in the first place?” Lucy had been trying to hide her fear but Flynn had seen the way she’d had been covering her chest. He was starting to get good at Lucy’s tells. When she was scared, she would cover her chest, like someone was going to hit her there, her hands shaking.

It made Flynn wonder if her amnesia was trauma-induced. He’d seen it, in other street kids, hurt so bad by their parents that they would have gaps in their memories, shoving those bad memories away and locking them up so they didn’t have to face them. He didn’t know who’d hurt Lucy, if it was her family or someone else, but he’d strangle them with his bare hands if he could.

“The general’s ordered an investigation,” Wyatt hissed. “Not that I should be telling you this since you’re the one I’m investigating. You finally started a fire too damn hot for them to ignore—”

“And they sent you, because you did _such_ a fantastic job the last time you were supposed to arrest me.”

“Excuse me?” Wyatt snorted. “You were—”

“—if you say ‘easy’ so help me—”

“ _You_ seduced _me_ ,” Wyatt snapped.

“While you were undercover to arrest me!” Flynn snapped back. “I’m told you’re asked to go above and beyond for your country but really?”

“Like you were subtle about it! You had your hand down my pants.”

“And, what, you were just too easy to say no?”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“You could have, if you weren’t _trying to arrest me._ ”

They glared at one another for a moment. Flynn hated the way Wyatt still made his skin get all hot and tight, the way he itched to kiss some sense into the guy. After Larisa had died in the revolution, Flynn hadn’t so much as looked at anyone else, and then this stubborn, hotheaded guy had stumbled into his theatre with these pretty blue eyes and messy hair and asking for a passport—with a decidedly non-Russian name like Wyatt Logan, of course he was—and next thing Flynn knew they were kissing on the desk and Wyatt was making the absolutely best noises against Flynn’s mouth.

It did occur to Flynn that the two people he’d fallen for since Larisa, and even Larisa herself, had a strong habit of arguing with him at every turn. There was a pattern here.

But it didn’t matter that he still felt protective of Wyatt, or that he still wanted to kiss him senseless, because Wyatt’s whole act about wanting to flee the Bolsheviks had been a ruse to try and get evidence to arrest Flynn.

…Flynn had found this out when he’d pickpocketed Wyatt’s coat and found the arrest papers, but really, if Wyatt really had been fleeing then he wouldn’t have needed those papers anyway, and Flynn needed them to make sure the passports were up to date and accurate…

Okay, so he’d pickpocketed the personal papers of the guy he was trying to sleep with, but that guy _had been trying to arrest him_ so really. Neither of them had the moral high ground here.

Try telling that to Wyatt.

“I know what people like your government do to people that they’re suspicious of. She has a right to be scared and if you’ve got any kind of conscience, you leave her out of this.”

“Don’t tell me you actually care about her.” Wyatt’s tone was sarcastic. “I know what kind of guy you are. You’re the kind of guy who’ll get someone else to fall in love with you just to get what you want, you had to know what you were dragging her into when you convinced her to agree to this—this insane scheme, which you’re not even going to be able to pull off, by the way, and—so don’t go acting all high and mighty on me like you didn’t know you were using her the second you chose her to pretend to be this princess.”

“Oh, pretend? You’re so certain she’s not the one?”

“Lyusya is dead, same as the rest of the family.”

“And you were there, were you? You saw the bodies?”

“Maybe I was and maybe I did,” Wyatt snapped. “But if she really is the princess then that only makes it more dangerous for her. So if you really care about her at all, you’ll tell her to cut out this nonsense and stop putting her life in danger.”

“The only one putting her in danger is you,” Flynn growled. “You’re the one investigating, so you’re the one who’s hurting her. Don’t pin that on me.”

He walked past, shoving his shoulder into Wyatt’s chest as he did so, taking advantage of his height. Wyatt called him a few very unflattering names in Gaelic, probably thinking Flynn didn’t speak that (he didn’t, but he knew when someone was calling him a motherfucker no matter what the language).

Great. Just great. The Bolsheviks were after them. Not just any—the Cheka, the secret police. The ones who’d killed the Romanovs in cold blood in the first place.

They had to get the money to get out of Russia, and fast, or all their lives would be forfeit. Flynn had lost his mother and he’d lost his first love. He wasn’t about to lose his best friend or the girl who’d put all of her faith in him. He had to get them out.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt didn’t go into work to report. If they knew that he’d run right into Flynn and hadn’t arrested him on the spot then he’d be in massive trouble but dammit, he still couldn’t forget how Flynn’s hands had felt sliding up under his shirt or the way Flynn’s voice had gotten all soft and deep when Wyatt had been pretending to need a passport, how Flynn had promised Wyatt he’d take care of him.

There was also the fact that if he turned in Flynn, he’d have to turn in Lucy.

And he really, really didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to see her hurt.

So he didn’t go home.

He went to visit Darya.

It was winter, so there weren’t any flowers for him to leave. He used his glove to brush the snow off the gravestone, trying to keep it a little neat. She’d liked things to be neat.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said, clearing his throat. “How’re you doing? I, uh, I’m sorry I haven’t visited much lately. I’m… I’m feeling kind of lost, honestly.”

His eyes felt hot and he blinked rapidly, trying to clear them. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know about anything anymore. I did everything we planned, I’m working up the ranks but… but now they’re asking me to hunt down a young woman.

“She’s our age, Darya. And she’s just trying to make her way in the world. And she—she doesn’t treat me like an asshole just because I’m Bolshevik and she’s sweet and… but we have a duty, right, isn’t that what we always said? And—and if she tries to—I mean she won’t try but others would try, those nobles that never did anything for us would try and use her to take control again and hoard everything for themselves just like before but—but she’s not like that, Darya, and I don’t—I can’t—I know what my dad would do, I know what he _did_ , but—fuck I wish you were here.” He wiped at his eyes. “I wish you could tell me what to do. You—you were better than I was, fuck, and I—I feel so fucking lost and everyone expects me to be a certain way and I don’t know if I _want_ to be that way and you always knew who you were and you didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought and I just—I wish you could teach me to be like that.”

He rested his hand on her headstone. Darya had always been so certain of herself, of what they needed to do. And he… wasn’t. She’d been dedicated to the cause, and she’d given her life for it.

But she’d also been loving and compassionate. She wouldn’t want Wyatt to help anyone kill someone in cold blood.

“I miss you,” he admitted. “I miss you so much. I’ll bring you some more flowers once it’s spring, I promise. I hope you’re happy.”

He walked home, his hands shoved into his pockets.

He’d just give it one more day.

 

* * *

 

Lucy jumped a little as Flynn banged into the theatre. “Where’s Rufus?”

“Out,” she said. Rufus didn’t tell her what he did to earn the money they were saving to get out of the country. Flynn didn’t tell her anything, either. She understood that they had their secrets just like she had hers and she tried to respect it, but it also drove her nuts.

Flynn grunted.

“What crawled up your ass?” she asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he shot back, shucking his coat and scarf. Then he paused, sighing, his shoulders slumping. “Look, Lucy, it’s—it’s best if you just don’t ask questions.”

“But this concerns me, too,” Lucy replied. “I know you say I’m a princess but that doesn’t mean I’m made of glass. I deserve to know what’s going on.”

“Lucy—”

“You’ve had me cooped up in this theatre for weeks, Flynn. And you need to cool off.” She stood up, holding out her arm. “Take me on a walk.”

Flynn raised an eyebrow at her. This was, admittedly, the nicest she’d ever been to him. Lucy cleared her throat. “It’s not good to keep a princess waiting.”

Flynn gave a small, oddly soft smile at that, and walked over to let her take his arm. “Fine. We’ll go on a walk.”

It was freezing outside, and she curled into Flynn, her chest aching. He glanced down at her. “You all right?”

“Yeah, sorry, it just—it aches when it’s cold.”

“…injury?”

“…something like that.”

Flynn reached into his coat, pulling out a loaf of bread. He tore it in half, passing one to her and putting the other half back inside his pocket.

“You’re supposed to tear it into thirds.” She knew without a doubt he’d give the other half to Rufus. They sniped at each other all day but those two were insanely protective of each other.

“You’re smaller, you need to grow more than I do,” Flynn said, smirking at her.

“Wow, a short joke, so original.”

Flynn elbowed her gently. “Here, look. You get the best view of the river here.”

She paused, inhaling the sharp, stinging air as she looked out over the frozen scene. “How is it that everything always looks beautiful from far away?” she asked. “Like the palace… if you walk by, at sunset, the light catches and it looks like it always used to… and then you get close, and you see the broken windows and the marks from where they tore the doors open and you realize it’s just an old shell.”

Flynn glanced at her. “You aren’t a fan of the revolution.”

“I… don’t know what I am. I want people to be equal. But whenever I think about it all that I can think of is… death. Loss.” Pain. Fear. Running, screaming, someone torn out of her arms.

“Whoa.” Flynn caught her as she knees gave way. “You really need the extra bread, princess.”

“Sorry. I—sometimes I get—I don’t know if they’re nightmares or not. Flashes.”

“Memories?” Flynn said, his tone… soft.

She hadn’t thought Misha Flynn was capable of softness. “I guess they could be.”

She debated whether or not to ask this next part, but Flynn was such an enigma, and he seemed to actually be softening to her now…

“You’re not a fan of the revolution, either,” she said softly.

Flynn snorted. “I am. Or I was.”

He looked down at the ice. “I was… my mother was one of the revolutionaries. She was a big deal, in the party. She believed in freedom for everyone. She’d bring me to meetings, as a child and a teenager. I grew up in that world, fell in love with a girl from that world. But…” He shook his head, fire igniting in his dark eyes. “But I also remember how everyone in the party would turn on each other. The Romanovs took everything, they wallowed in wealth while we starved, but now they expect us to bow to new masters and I bow for no one. Ever. Not a Romanov, and not a fucking general who clawed his way to the top of the new food chain by manipulating the mob. My mother’s dream is dead. People here aren’t any freer than they were under the monarchy. I have to lie and steal and cheat the same as I did before. That’s not a proper revolution. That’s just more murder.”

Lucy squeezed his arm gently. “I’m—I’m sorry. What happened to… to the girl?”

“Her name was Larisa,” Flynn said. “She and my mother—I lost them both in the revolution.”

“Oh.” Lucy bit her lip. “I don’t know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say.” Flynn’s voice was harsh. “The nobles lost a lot in the revolution but so did we. Everyone has dead relatives now.”

Flynn turned away. Lucy swallowed, her heart going out to him. He was right, and she knew it. “Misha…”

“That’s not my name.” Flynn’s voice was like a whip cracking. Lucy jumped, startled.

Flynn turned back, saw her face, and gentled. “I’m sorry. That—that’s not my name.”

“What do you mean?”

“My mother wasn’t from here. Neither was my father, actually. She named me after her mother’s maiden name. It’s a Spanish last name but she thought it worked as a first name, too, and to hold onto my heritage. But the last name Flynn is already too much of a standout and after things got ugly in the revolution I started saying my name was Misha. I picked it because it means ‘bear’ same as my real name.”

“What is your real name?”

“Garcia. Garcia Flynn.” He smiled at her, the gesture making him look years younger and softer. “Only two other people know. Rufus is one of them.”

“Who’s the other one.”

Flynn’s gaze went dark. “Doesn’t matter. Anyway I think that’s enough questions, don’t you princess?”

He turned and walked away, back towards the theatre. God dammit. Every time she got close to him he’d shove her away. Lucy impulsively took her half of the bread and threw it at him, clocking him on the head.

Flynn stared at her in shock. “That was a good throw.”

“A pretty girl alone in the city? I had to learn how to defend myself.”

Flynn picked up the bread and brought it back to her, dusting the snow off. “Eat, Lucy.”

She took a bite of bread and glared at him as she chewed it. Flynn laughed. “Sorry, I’m sorry—you just—I know you’re trying to look intimidating but—you’re just too adorable. In that coat especially. It’s so threadbare, you should exchange—”

“No!” she said, reeling back as panic set in. She clutched the coat to herself. “No, no, it’s mine.”

Flynn stared at her. “It’s all right,” he said, like he was trying not to spook a horse. “You can keep it. It was just an idea.”

Lucy swallowed her mouthful of bread, feeling awkward. Flynn sighed, gazing out over the city. “You know I used to love this fucking place. Now it feels like a prison.”

“When are we getting out?”

“I don’t know.” Flynn scrubbed his face. “It’s taking longer to gather the funds than we’d hoped.”

She couldn’t share many family secrets, the way that Flynn just had with her. She didn’t know her past like that. But she did have one secret she could give in exchange, to help them.

“Here.” She reached into her coat and carefully pulled at the lining on the left-hand side, reaching her hand in.

Then she pulled out the diamond.

Flynn’s eyes went wide and he hastily covered her hand. “Lucy, be careful!” he hissed, looking around to see if anyone saw that. “Where did you get that, how long have you had it?”

“It was on me,” Lucy said. “I—I woke up, in a field, with a woman tending to me. She said this was in my dress. She gave me the coat and sewed it into the side and told me to never, ever use it unless I had to, and only to show it to someone I could trust. She took me home and raised me back to health.”

“Back to health?”

Lucy rubbed at her chest. “I—I was sick,” she lied. “Pneumonia.”

“Is that why your chest aches?”

“Yes.”

“We’d better get you—and this—inside, then.” Flynn wrapped his arm around her shoulders and started leading her back to the theatre.

“Take it,” Lucy insisted, putting the diamond in his pocket. “Use it however you have to, to get us out.”

“Lucy, this is yours. Not mine.”

“And it’s my title you’re helping me reclaim, right? I’m the princess, I’m the one who will benefit the most from this, it’s only fair I do my part. I’m not your—your little child to protect, I’m a full partner in this.”

Flynn looked down at her, something that she dared to call pride in his eyes. “You’re used to bossing people around, is that it, princess?” he said, but his tone was teasing, almost affectionate.

“It’s your fault. I was just a humble street sweeper until you.”

“I can’t imagine you being ‘just’ anything,” Flynn replied.

They were at the door to the theatre, and Flynn had to pause to get the door open. It put her chest almost up against his, especially with his arm around her shoulders still, and he really was handsome, especially in this evening light with the sun highlighting his sharp features, the dark eyes that seemed to hold worlds in them, the expressive mouth…

Flynn looked down at her and she could have been imagining it but she swore she saw his breath catch in his throat. His tongue darted out across his bottom lip and her eyes tracked the movement before she could stop herself, and maybe this was why they argued so much, maybe this was why—

“Well there you two are,” Rufus said, opening the door.

Flynn jerked like someone had slapped him, then stepped back away from her, letting go of her and rolling his eyes at Rufus. “We brought you dinner,” he said, handing Rufus the other half of the bread and shoving past him.

Rufus turned and watched him go. “Did you two fight again?”

“I don’t know what we did,” Lucy said honestly.

Rufus put a hand on her shoulder. “He’s rough around the edges but he’s a good guy.”

“You’re a good guy too, Rufus.” Lucy reached up and squeezed his hand. “You’ve been really patient with me through this whole thing. I really want to get you to Jiya.”

Rufus grinned at her. “Y’know, if all nobles were like you, Lucy, I don’t think we would’ve been so keen to overthrow you.”

If she’d grown up noble, she wasn’t sure if she’d still be the same person, if she’d still feel the same way she did now. But that was the kind of speculation she couldn’t afford. Lucy shoved those thoughts away. “Yes, well, let’s hope it’s enough for the Grand Duke, shall we?”

She walked past Rufus into the theatre. The whole night, Flynn didn’t even look at her.

It looked like whatever moment they’d just been about to have, the door to it had now been shut.


	4. Chapter 4

Flynn used the diamond to get them train tickets, and the next thing Lucy knew they were packing in a flurry and hurrying to the train station.

They waited in a huddle along with a handful of others. Everyone looked around nervously as they boarded the train and found seats. Lucy had her big coat on, plus a hat jammed onto her head, one that Rufus had found her. She ended up squished in between the two men, the air feeling stuffy, claustrophobic.

She shuddered. The walls felt like they were closing in.

_The walls are closing in on you. You’re in a room with the windows always closed and painted over. When you try to open them they shoot at you. There’s no fresh air, you just want fresh air, you’re inside day in and day out…_

“Lucy.” Flynn put an arm around her shoulders. “Just hold onto me, it’s all right.”

She clutched at him. “I’m sorry I’m—I don’t like tight spaces.”

“Hum something.”

“What?”

“Hum something. It’s what Larisa would do to calm herself down. Seemed to work for her.”

Lucy held onto his coat and hummed quietly. She didn’t know the name of the song, but it felt like she’d always known it, and whenever she was upset she would hum it. She used to sing it to the girls in the apartment during the cold winter nights when they were all exhausted and feeling alone.

_Dancing bears, painted wings, things I almost remember… and a song, someone sings, once upon a December._

She couldn’t remember the full lyrics, so she’d made up some of her own on the long, cold trek from her tiny village all the way to Leningrad.

_Someone holds me safe and warm, horses prance through a silver storm, figures dancing gracefully across my memory…_

“Look,” Rufus whispered. “It’s Count Ipolitov. I remember him from the palace.”

“Idiot, has he waited two years to try and get out?” Flynn hissed.

“He probably thought things would be more relaxed, that he could slip out unnoticed if he was patient.”

_Far away, long ago, glowing dim as an ember, things my heart used to know, things it yearns to remember…_

The count was a thin, slightly older man. He looked quiet, soft, the artistic type. He paused as he passed their row, starting when he saw Lucy.

“My—my dear,” he stuttered out. He reached out, taking her hand and kissing it. His hands trembled. Lucy didn’t know what to do, if she should squeeze his hand or take hers back. “My dear girl.”

He kissed her hand again. “God bless you and keep you safe,” he whispered.

“My lord,” Lucy whispered in response, unsure what else to say. “I—the same to you.”

Count Ipolitov nodded at Flynn and Rufus, and then went to take a seat a few rows back.

_And a song, someone sings, once upon a December._

“I hope we don’t run into any more like that,” Rufus whispered. “We can’t afford attention.”

Flynn pulled Lucy closer into his side as the train lurched and began to move.

Despite the odd encounter and the claustrophobia, Lucy managed to doze for a while. She dreamed of lying in the snow—no, someone dragging her through the snow—she dreamed of voices, of a little girl screaming for her, of pain, pain in her chest, so much pain it was like she was on fire—

She startled awake, gasping for breath.

“Shh, shh, it’s all right,” Flynn whispered. “Look natural, don’t look scared.”

“What’s going on?”

“Police,” Rufus whispered. “Checking passports.”

Lucy’s heart froze. The time had come—would their passports pass inspection?

The officers were moving through the rows, creeping closer. She tried to keep her expression neutral, to stay calm. Flynn looked completely casual, like this was a trip he made every week.

“Hey!”

Lucy jumped, but the officer wasn’t talking to her—he was talking to Count Ipolitov.

“I—no—please—”

The poor count tried to make a break for it, but the officers grabbed him, yanking him off the train. Everyone was shuffling, whispering, a few people cried out, Lucy could hear struggling outside—

“The passports,” Rufus hissed. “Look at everyone’s passports, Flynn! Theirs are white, ours are red!”

Flynn swore in a language Lucy didn’t recognize. “We need to get off the train.”

She could see past Flynn through the window, they were forcing the count down onto his knees—

_Backs against the wall, on your knees, Amy clutches your hand and you’re scared you’re so scared oh God in Heaven—_

Flynn saw where she was looking and grabbed her face, shoving it into his shoulder. “Lucy don’t—”

Several gunshots went off.

Everyone screamed.

“Oh, fuck, he tried to run poor bastard,” someone said.

“Rufus!” Flynn was yelling. “Rufus we need to get off _now_!”

“We fight them!” Rufus said. “Flynn it up, Flynn!”

“What the fuck does that even mean?” Lucy asked.

“It doesn’t matter because we are not fighting them, we’re getting off this damn train!” Flynn hissed, grabbing her and shoving her behind him.

She couldn’t breathe, her chest was in pain—it was _exploding_ in pain, like, like…

Flynn grabbed her, and Rufus, the three of them stumbling through the car. Flynn yanked one of the doors open as the officers got back on the train as it started to move again. If it picked up enough speed it would be too dangerous to jump off, and yet…

Rufus was standing next to her, gulping, gasping, his eyes wide. “Fuck,” he was gasping. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ —”

“Rufus you need to jump!” Flynn yelled, glancing back.

Lucy felt the world spinning. She was in so much pain, people were screaming and she couldn’t tell if it was real or not, reality was fucking tilting, she was being dragged through the snow and a woman was telling her shh, shh, be quiet, someone was screaming for her, she was holding someone’s hand, she exited everywhere, she existed nowhere, blood, so much blood—

“Rufus!” Flynn gave a noise of frustration and grabbed him. “Sorry about this,” he said, and he threw Rufus off the train.

He grabbed Lucy and hoisted her up. Behind her she could hear officers yelling, and then a bullet pinged off the wall by their heads.

_She opens a window, she needs fresh air, a bullet pings by her head. She doesn’t open the window again._

Flynn wrapped his arms around her. “Hold on!” he yelled, and then they were air born.

Lucy screamed, burying her face into his shoulder, _the bullets hit her chest,_ she was shot backwards, _hitting the wall, her head hitting the wall, passing out, Amy’s hand in hers—_

The world went black.

 

* * *

 

As Lucy started to come to, she realized that she wasn’t the only one suffering.

She was in Flynn’s arms, his hand gently rubbing her chest, but his other hand was stretched out towards Rufus. “Rufus. _Rufus!_ Hey, buddy, hey, hey listen to my voice. You’re okay, I’ve got you, c’mon, grab my hand.”

Rufus grabbed Flynn’s hand, breathing heavily. “Fuck,” he spat out, his voice shaking.

“You’re okay, Rufus, I got you. You’re okay.”

Rufus’s breathing slowly calmed down. Lucy saw that his face was stained with tears. “S-sorry,” he muttered, wiping at his face. He was squeezing Flynn’s hand so hard she could see it shaking.

“You’re all right. Just breathe.”

Rufus continued to breathe. Lucy forced herself to breathe as well, turning her head to the side, breathing Flynn in. He smelled like pine and smoke, and Lucy almost wanted to cry at the way it suddenly made her feel so incredibly safe, the sense memory of him replacing the sense memory of the dark shadows that clung to the corners of her mind.

Flynn rubbed her chest softly, then gently got her hair out of her face. “We need to move,” he said, reluctant.

Rufus let go of Flynn’s hand and nodded, forcing himself to get to his feet. “I’m okay,” he said when Flynn looked like he was going to say something. “I’m all right, really.”

Flynn got his arm around Lucy’s waist and then hauled her to her feet—and kept going, hauling her all the way up until he was carrying her, bridal style.

“Flynn?” she asked.

Rufus eyed them, and Flynn glared at him. “Don’t tell me you want to be carried too, Pobeditel.”

Rufus rolled his eyes. “Nah, I’m good, I think I’ll survive being held by your manly arms.”

“Aww, you sure? Anything for my best bud…”

“You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?”

Lucy let her head rest on Flynn’s shoulder as he shifted his grip to hold her more securely, pulling her coat over her so that she was sheltered somewhat from the wind. “We need to find a place to take shelter for the night.”

They started walking through the snowy trees. “You okay?” Flynn asked, his voice low.

Lucy nodded. “I just—it was—it was all this pain, it was like I was feeling it all over again, and I could hear screaming…”

“Trauma,” Flynn said. “It… happens. When something, ah, really awful happens our brains can’t always handle it, so we lock it away and don’t think about it to protect ourselves.”

“Yeah, but this world is shit and keeps reminding us,” Rufus snapped.

“I don’t even remember it though,” Lucy said. “I know something happened, but I don’t know what.”

“If you’re the princess, then I think we all know what,” Rufus replied. “Same thing that happened to my family.”

Lucy’s blood ran cold, and it had nothing to do with the snow around them. “What—what happened?”

“My mother was a lady in waiting. She wasn’t a noble, she didn’t agree with the extravagance, but that didn’t matter to the fucking Bolsheviks,” Rufus said, his voice harder than Lucy had ever heard it. “They went after the servants too when they stormed the palace. We had to run for our lives. Me and Jiya and my brother and mom.

“They got us as we tried to make a break for the train station. Jiya jumped on and I reached back for my brother… next thing I know, there’s bullets hitting all of us.” Rufus pulled aside his coat and lifted up his shirt, revealing a circular scar near his hip. “I’m lucky they were so incompetent they thought I was dead.”

“How’d you make it out?”

Rufus nodded at Flynn. “He found me. He was digging through the bodies from the palace, they put us all in a mass grave.”

“You were digging through the bodies?” Why?

Flynn looked out across the horizon. “I was looking for someone.”

Larisa, maybe. Or his mother. “We’ve been together ever since,” Rufus said. “But my family…”

Lucy couldn’t even imagine, lying wounded and bleeding out, the dead bodies of your family and everyone else you knew on top of you. “Rufus, I’m… if I really am the princess, and I was—my family, they made the people hate them so much that they rose up and did this—I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for whatever my family did that led to this.”

“I appreciate the apology, Lucy, but you were sixteen. Or the princess was, anyway. Not exactly responsible for running the country into the ground.”

Lucy wanted to reach out, but she wasn’t sure if her touch would be welcome. “Well I’m… I know I lost someone. I don’t know exactly how but I feel that loss, every day. And I can’t even imagine what it would be like if I could remember them, remember the good times. So I’m sorry, Rufus. I truly am.”

Rufus looked back at her, his face softening for a moment. “I appreciate it, Lucy. You’re one of the good ones in my book, don’t you worry. I grew up in the palace, remember? Nobles aren’t all greedy bastards and Bolsheviks aren’t all ruthless. Everyone’s got layers. The only thing I judge is the violence, and you definitely weren’t responsible for that.”

Lucy nodded, unsure what to say to that but feeling breathtakingly grateful nonetheless. Rufus turned away again and resumed walking, as did Flynn. Lucy curled into his chest more, looping her arms around his neck. He was so warm, and so comfortable, his arms cradling her like she was something unspeakably precious, hunching his shoulders to keep her safe from the wind, and he smelled like home…

She wasn’t even sure when, but somehow, she slipped into sleep just like that.

 

 

* * *

 

Wyatt wasn’t surprised when the general called him in again. He knew that he’d been holding back, that he should’ve arrested Flynn and his compatriots days if not weeks ago, but he’d been trying to put the general off with excuses, pointing out that there were other women claiming to be Lyusya, including a mental patient of all things and some two-bit actress starring in a play—probably trying to drum up interest in said play—but he’d yet to actually arrest anyone, and that, he knew, was what his superiors wanted.

“Logan.” The general was sitting in his chair, staring out the window again. Wyatt didn’t know if the general actually enjoyed the view or if he was just doing that to be intimidating, and he didn’t care. “I’ve had reports that conman and two of his associates have managed to flee across the border.”

Wyatt’s breath caught in his throat, a strange fluttering sensation that he might even dare call hope springing to life in his chest. If they’d gotten out, that meant Lucy and Flynn were safe, right?

…not that he cared about Flynn or anything.

“I see, sir,” he said out loud. “Well, good riddance, I say. He’s been causing us trouble for years.”

“Yes…” The general turned, his thin face looking even more gaunt than usual. Wyatt had to wonder how much the older man was sleeping. Everyone in this damn country seemed to revel in how uncomfortable they were, how cold, how hungry, as if suffering was the quality of life to strive for. It reminded Wyatt uncomfortably of that disgusting ‘holy man’, Rasputin, and how people would starve themselves and wear sackcloth in the name of religion. Who did it truly benefit, to do all of that?

“You should have arrested them when you had the chance,” the general went on. “You were given a mission to arrest that conman once before, were you not? This makes the second time he’s managed to give you the slip.”

“Misha Flynn was a member of the revolution, sir. His mother was quite high up in the ranks before her unfortunate death. People remember that, they shelter him.”

“Be that as it may, the revolution is over. He is a criminal and now he has slipped through our fingers, and taken the girl with him.”

“With all due respect, sir, that girl can’t possibly be the princess. She’s just some imposter they’ve groomed. When—if—they get to the duke, she’ll be revealed for what she really is. There’s no danger to us.”

“The fact that she exists at all is a danger to us, Logan. The nobles will not care if she’s fake or not. They’ll use her as a rallying point to bring themselves back into power again and we cannot have that.”

“If she’s an imposter she’ll be exposed. They can’t rally around a peasant girl lying to save her own skin.”

“Are you so certain she’s an imposter? Your investigation has concluded that?”

Wyatt’s investigation into Lucy, no patronym, had been… worrisome. She’d arrived in Leningrad a year ago and had gotten a post as a street sweeper, living in an apartment with a half a dozen other girls. She kept herself to herself, or so her old roommates had told him when he’d made inquiries. Sweet girl, very thoughtful, she would do their hair for them in these lovely styles and sing to them sometimes, this little song she knew about dancing bears and angels, but she never talked about herself, never went out with them, didn’t really speak unless spoken to.

Before Leningrad, though, Lucy apparently… didn’t exist.

When she’d applied to live with the other girls she’d said she was from this small town that Wyatt hadn’t even heard of. He’d had to look it up and had found it was only thirteen kilometers northeast of Yekatarinburg.

Yekatarinburg was where Ipatiev House was located. Where the Romanov family had spent their last days before being shot.

Wyatt had been in Yekatrinburg but he had only been a young teen, he hadn’t known much about the surrounding area, and he supposed it could just be a coincidence but when you added in the fact that he couldn’t find any record of her, not in any of the census or when he’d tried to find her family lineage, well.

He’d dispatched a letter to the town, to see if anyone knew about a girl named Lucy. He hadn’t gotten a response, which on the one hand wasn’t at all surprising given the state of the roads and how the postal service had gone to shit after the revolution, but on the other hand…

In short, he hadn’t found anything to prove that Lucy was Lyusya. But he hadn’t found anything to prove that she wasn’t, either.

“Logan,” his superior snapped. “Have you concluded that she’s an imposter? You have birth certificates, something to prove that she’s just a normal girl?”

“I don’t need a piece of paper,” Wyatt replied, struggling to keep his temper in. “I know that Lyusya is dead. The whole family is dead.”

The general tried to speak but Wyatt kept talking. “I was _there_ , sir. I was—I heard it, all of it. You know my—my father, what he did, sir. We lived right outside of Ipatiev House. I heard it all happen and I promise you, if anyone had gotten out, I would have seen it. My father would’ve seen it, any of the other soldiers would’ve seen it. My wife was there, she was one of the women they brought in to check the bodies to make sure they were dead. Both father and my wife gave their lives to this cause. Are you calling them liars? Traitors?”

Wyatt was breathing heavily, his chest feeling tight, the room swimming a little. Darya and his father had believed in this revolution with everything in them. Wyatt could still remember his father’s grim face the morning he’d gone out to Ipatiev House. He could still feel Darya in his arms as she returned from the house, the way she’d shaken, pale, and had whispered, _it’s done. They did it. They really did it._

His superior stared at him. “You look like you could use a vacation, Logan.”

“I’m fine, sir.”

“Nonsense. Take a little trip to Paris.”

Wyatt’s stomach churned. “Sir?”

“That girl has to be stopped, before she undoes all of our hard work. The people whisper about her as if she’s some kind of angel. As if she can magically make bread fall from the sky. The Romanovs and their kind ran our country into the ground and I will not stand for this to crumble beneath us after we gave so much blood and tears to rebuild Russia into a free land of equality.”

Wyatt almost snorted at that. Try telling everyone who was still starving how much things had changed, how much better they were now.

“She has to be eliminated. Do you understand, Logan?”

Wyatt swallowed. “I…”

“Your father understood that sometimes we must do unpleasant things, sacrifice a few for the sake of many. And Flynn would be executed for his crimes here, anyway.”

“But without a trial, sir…”

Wyatt tried to ignore the cold lump forming in the pit of his stomach. Flynn was a criminal, yes, but… but fuck, when Wyatt had come in, lying and saying he couldn’t handle being in the Bolsheviks anymore, that he couldn’t be a part of it and saw no other way to get out, Flynn had sat him down. He’d gotten him some soup, given him bread—he’d never said but Wyatt suspected it was his own dinner he’d just given up, and to a stranger of all things. When Wyatt had railed about how his father had given him this stupid name, this Scottish name that stood out, that made everyone make fun of him when he was a kid and look down their nose at him as an adult, Flynn had shared his own real name, a Spanish surname, given by his American mother.

“You’re braver than I am,” Flynn had told him. “You don’t hide who you are.”

Wyatt was pretty sure that had been when he’d fallen in love with the guy.

He’d thought—he’d really thought that Flynn had cared for him. Flynn had kissed him like nothing else in the world mattered. He’d respected Wyatt’s request to go slow, he’d let Wyatt fall asleep on him, he’d made sure Wyatt ate enough. For the first time since Darya had died, he’d felt understood. And for the first time ever in his life, he’d felt safe.

The arrest papers had burned a hole in Wyatt’s pocket for a whole week as he’d fallen deeper and deeper, not knowing how to tell Flynn the truth but not knowing how to save him, either.

Then Flynn had fucking pickpocketed him—while making out with Wyatt of all goddamn fucking distraction techniques—to try and get official papers off him and had found the arrest papers instead.

Cue a massive fight that had both of them saying things that Darya would’ve slapped Wyatt for saying to anyone, no matter who they were, and Wyatt hadn’t seen Flynn until he’d bumped into him the other day.

Flynn was an enterprising cold-hearted bastard, or so Wyatt told himself.

But could he really pull the trigger on him? Execute him in cold blood, without a trial, without even a chance?

“Sir, the people won’t like it if they here it was just another execution. They were already antsy about how we treated the Romanov household.”

“We’ll take care of that once the deed is done. The girl and that conman must be eliminated, and anyone who travels with them, I believe he has an associate of some kind. By any means necessary, do you understand?”

Wyatt felt like a statue.

“You’re a good soldier, Logan. You’ve been loyal, and hardworking. It would be a pity to see all of that go up in smoke.”

He swallowed, fear running around inside of him like a dog chasing its tail. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. You’ll depart in the morning. Speak to the accounting department about procuring the funds for the journey.”

“Yes sir.”

He hurried from the room, ran straight to the bathroom, and bent over the toilet, shaking, but nothing came out.

Lucy and Flynn. He had been ordered to kill them.

Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

 

* * *

 

They finally found an abandoned barn to hole up in for the night. Flynn made a small fire out of some hay, and insisted on taking first watch. Rufus needed some goddamn sleep after reliving that nightmare.

This wasn’t how he’d wanted to get Lucy to Paris. She deserved something better, something with a bit of comfort. But they’d make do.

Rufus stretched out on his side, but Lucy had fallen asleep in Flynn’s arms as they walked—and didn’t that make his heart pitter-pat at a dangerous pace. She was still sleepy when they got to the barn, and staggered bleary eyed to sit down next to Flynn, resting her head on his shoulder and promptly falling asleep again.

Flynn’s heart was racing.

Especially when he remembered how he’d found Rufus.

He’d been digging through the corpses, trying to find proof, trying to find her.

Lyusya.

He’d known it was stupid but he’d been crazy with grief, twenty years old and with the dirt still on his clothes from burying his mother and his wife, and he’d heard from a guy who’d heard from a guy who’d heard from a guy that Lyusya hadn’t been shot, something about jewels hidden in her corset, and that she might—just might—be alive.

He couldn’t have saved his family, but if he could find Lyusya, protect her…

Instead he’d found Rufus, and he’d saved him instead.

Not that he regretted it. Rufus was his best friend and the best person Flynn had ever met. But he couldn’t let Lucy know that was who he’d been searching for among the bodies. The things he’d seen in those graves…

The worst had been when he’d found Princess Amaliya. Amy, as she’d been affectionately called by her sister, a little fact he’d learned later from Rufus.

He still couldn’t picture it in his head without throwing up. She’d been only nine when she’d died, her blonde hair stained with her own dried blood.

He wrapped his arm around Lucy’s shoulders as she slept. He wouldn’t let that happen to her. He wouldn’t. They’d never hurt her.

Flynn was well aware how he was starting to feel for the feisty girl. And she was in many ways still a girl, he reminded himself. Lucy was just eighteen and he was twenty-two—just four years, yes, but it felt almost like a decade at times. He’d already fallen in love and lost, twice.

And if all went as planned, he’d lose her, too.

Larisa had died, but in a way, losing Wyatt was worse. He’d fallen for the idiot in the span of a week, because Flynn supposed he was just a sap like that. Wyatt had been oddly sweet, innocent, truths spilling out of him like a rushing river, hanging on Flynn’s every word and watching him with shining eyes. There was a two-year age gap, not much, and God knew that Wyatt wasn’t naïve. But he still saw the world in black and white and he’d been so damn soft, and starved for affection… how could Flynn not fall for someone who’d seemed to need him so damn badly?

One fucking week. One week of figuring out how to work the gramophone in the theatre and teaching Wyatt how to dance to it, helping him stumble through the steps, the two of them tipsy on cheap vodka. One week of talking about Larisa and listening to Wyatt talk about Darya. One week of coaxing Wyatt into bolder and bolder kisses and touches, going slow because Wyatt hadn’t ever been with a man and trembled like a skittish colt when Flynn put his hands on him, wanting and yet scared of wanting.

And then it had all fucking shattered.

Lucy made a small noise of fear and Flynn shushed her gently, stirring the fire to keep it going and gently brushing his fingers through her hair until the lines of her face smoothed out.

One week to fall in love with Wyatt, and about as much time to fall in love with Lucy.

But this time—this time he knew the score. He wouldn’t let himself be so foolish as to think he could keep her this time. They’d teach her how to be the best damn princess ever, and then they’d deliver her to the duke, and collect their reward… and he’d never see her again.

Princesses didn’t marry kitchen boys.

He’d be smart, this time. This time, he wasn’t going to let himself hope.


	5. Chapter 5

As they traveled, they continued to train Lucy. Flynn quizzed her constantly—more than Rufus felt they had to, honestly—as if Lucy’s life would be forfeit if she got a question wrong. Rufus tried to be a little more gentle, especially as Lucy got cranky and snapped back at Flynn and the two descended into sniping again.

“What was the name of your horse?” Rufus asked.

“Romeo,” Lucy replied. Flynn had gotten them a cart and horse with the help of the money from the diamond, and Lucy and Rufus were riding in the hay in the back, Flynn banished to the front seat.

“Were you an obedient child?” Flynn teased.

“Nope. Once I climbed up a tree and refused to come down,” Lucy said cheerfully. “I stuck my foot out to trip people and one time threw a snowball with a rock in it at my brother.”

“He deserved it,” Rufus grumbled. The two princes had been stuck up assholes, if you asked him.

“Charming child,” Flynn said.

“Like you were any better, I’m sure,” Lucy shot back.

“Who was your great-grandmother?” Rufus said, trying to head off an argument at the pass.

“Queen Victoria.”

“Great-great grandmother?”

“Princess Victoria of Saxe-Colburg-Saalfield.”

“Your best friend?”

“My little sister Amy.”

Rufus paused. He hadn’t told Lucy her little sister’s nickname. “Ah, wrong, Amaliya wasn’t your best friend.”

“I know who my best friend is,” Lucy snapped, suddenly full of fire.

Rufus started, looking up at Flynn.

“Well, she has the temper down right,” Flynn said.

“I don’t like being contradicted,” Lucy replied. “This is ridiculous. I’m in a cart in the middle of nowhere basically fleeing for my life…”

“Lucy.” Rufus took her hand. “We’re all scared. It’s okay. You’ve got this. You’ve been doing really well. Just a few more, okay?”

She nodded, taking a deep breath. “Okay.”

“So. Count Sergei.”

“He had a yellow cat,” Lucy said, smiling as if in memory.

Rufus frowned. He hadn’t told her that. “Right. And always wore a feathered hat, tried to look dashing and younger than he was.”

“Got it.”

Rufus quizzed her on a few more, trying not to be too rough with her. A lot was riding on this, but Lucy was already aware of that. She didn’t need more pressure. If they could just get this right… he’d be with Jiya again, and would have the money to support her. Flynn would have income, and Lucy would have a family. After all, what did it matter if she was the princess or not so long as she and the duke believed it and had each other to love?

Except…

Lucy knew things he hadn’t told her. Like Amaliya’s nickname and the count’s cat. And sometimes when she spoke, the way she acted like she expected to be obeyed…

Rufus hadn’t seen Lyusya too much when he’d been a servant—usually it was from a distance. But her personality had left a strong impression, and Lucy… but how could she have survived? Someone had to have helped her, but if someone had, why hadn’t they helped her get to the duke sooner? Lucy had amnesia, that much wasn’t faked. Her passing out when they’d jumped off the train, the times she would cry with frustration struggling to remember something, the way she got silent when Rufus or Flynn would mention a happy childhood memory… there was no reason for her to fake all of that misery, and Rufus didn’t think anyone was that good of an actress.

So if she was the princess, the amnesia explained why she hadn’t gotten to Paris yet. But there was no way she’d gotten out on her own. Rufus had seen the way they’d kept everyone trapped in those rooms, not even allowed outside. She’d have needed help, but if she got it, had the person then abandoned her? How had it been done?

And yet—

That night, he pulled Flynn aside as Lucy started up a fire for them. “Flynn. I think we have to start considering that maybe—maybe she’s who we want her to pretend to be.”

“Are you crazy?” Flynn whispered. “Rufus, I looked for her. There’s no way she crawled out of that grave by herself. The trauma of it, yes, that would cause amnesia but the injuries—you didn’t see Princess Amaliya, fuck Rufus she was _riddled_ with bullets. Nobody could have survived that.”

“Then how does she know these details? She knew Amaliya’s nickname—”

“There were Romanovs besides just the main family, Rufus, you know that. Cousins and second cousins and all that. Someone could’ve knocked up a servant girl, hell the crown prince was fucking known for it, didn’t he have an affair with that redhead? Lucy could be the child of that affair. Watching people get murdered is traumatic, that would explain the amnesia and why she knows these details.”

“And I think you don’t want her to be the princess,” Rufus snapped. “Occam’s razor, Flynn, it’s the simplest solution.”

“Boys?” Lucy looked over at them. “Food’s ready.”

Flynn glared at him. “Not a word.”

Rufus shrugged. They were already lying to Lucy about believing she was the princess, saying they were trying to jog her memory instead of passing her off. The line was blurring now, for Rufus anyway and he was pretty sure for Flynn, too, whether or not he admitted it to himself.

“All right,” he said instead, because he didn’t want Flynn to brood for hours and Lucy would blame herself if Flynn did brood and Rufus did not need that kind of mess on his hands, “Lucy, c’mere, it’s time you learned how to waltz.”

“Waltz?” Lucy looked terrified.

“It’s easy,” Rufus soothed her. “Here.”

Flynn rolled his eyes. “Because the duke is going to have her waltz for him to prove who she is. Sure.”

“She needs to learn how to do these things. Lyusya took ballet and dance lessons, it’ll be muscle memory for you once you get into it.”

Lucy got up reluctantly and let Rufus position her. “Chin up, that’s it.”

“I feel ridiculous.”

“You want to feel ridiculous? I could have you dance with Flynn, a foot of height difference, now that’s ridiculous.”

“Hey,” Flynn protested. “Height doesn’t matter if the guy knows what he’s doing.”

“And you know what you’re doing?”

“I taught…” Flynn paused. “I’ve taught people how to waltz before.”

Rufus thought he knew what Flynn had been about to say. _I taught Wyatt_. Rufus had been running a confidence trick on the other side of town for a few weeks, so he hadn’t been there in person for the whole Wyatt thing. But he had been there to see Flynn drink himself into a stupor for three days over it and beat the shit out of some old sandbags. How a guy had gotten so under Flynn’s skin in one week, Rufus didn’t know. He just knew that his best friend was still hurting from it.

“All right then,” Lucy said, turning to Flynn. “Teach me.”

Flynn looked like she’d asked him to jump into the Seine butt naked, then schooled his face into a more neutral expression and got to his feet. “Fine.”

He wrapped an arm around Lucy’s waist, his hand at the small of her back, then took her other hand in his. The height difference was pretty laughable, and Rufus had to smother his snort in his elbow.

Then Flynn started to move.

“It’s one two three, one two three, one two three,” Flynn said, counting softly under his breath for her.

Rufus’s breath caught.

Lucy moved like she’d been born to it, her feet perfectly in position, keeping up with Flynn’s movements without a single stumble. Her back was straight, her arms held up, looking weightless, effortless, her chin held high.

Even in her threadbare dress and coat, she looked like a princess.

Rufus hadn’t seen Lyusya up close much, no. But he had seen her from afar, how she moved, how she danced, and this…

_Princess. We weren’t even trying, and we found you._

Flynn spun Lucy around and she laughed, her head tossing back, dark curls flying. Flynn smiled and pulled her back in, tucking her into him, and oh, oh fuck, Rufus could smack himself in the face.

Lucy laughed and ducked her head down, resting her forehead on Flynn’s chest. Despite the height difference they actually made a good-looking couple, moving well together, their dark heads bowing into each other, the way Flynn’s large, rough hands held her…

Oh God, he should never have let this happen. He should’ve cut this off at the pass. Because they were smiling at each other like they were the only two people in the world, their eyes shining, and Rufus knew that now he was going to have to watch his best friend’s heart get broken all over again.

 _Fuck_.

 

* * *

 

Rufus went to bed early, in a weirdly quiet mood. Flynn supposed it was the fact that they were getting close to Paris—and close to Jiya. Rufus hadn’t seen Jiya in two years, and if Flynn were in his position, he’d be freaking out. What if Jiya had moved on? What if he’d changed too much and she no longer loved him? Etc.

Flynn hoped, for Rufus’s sake, that Jiya still cared for him. He’d never met Jiya personally but from the way Rufus described her she sounded like a wonderful girl. And Rufus deserved only the best for putting up with Flynn’s insanity all this time.

He added some more wood to the fire as Lucy coughed, rubbing at her chest. Flynn watched her with concern. They were well into February now, but the cold continued, and Lucy’s chest pains along with it. Perhaps… his mother had known some herbal remedies. It wouldn’t be much, but it was better than nothing.

“Stay here,” Flynn whispered. He passed her the knife he always carried, just in case. “I’ll be right back.”

Lucy watched him with dark eyes as he slipped out into the woods. It was winter, so it would be hard going, but he didn’t need a lot of the stuff…

It took him about an hour, and by the time he got back, he saw that Lucy was dozing off. She looked unhappy, though, her forehead wrinkled and her hand on her chest like she’d been rubbing it as she fell asleep.

Flynn shook her gently. Lucy started awake, her eyes wide. “Shh, shh, it’s just me.”

“Garcia.” Her use of his first name took him by surprise, made his heart ache. “I…” She looked around. “I dreamt I was standing at the edge of a cliff, and down below me were people that I loved. A family. They were calling to me… but when I drew close to the edge they turned into demons and tried to drag me down.”

“It’s just a dream,” Flynn replied, grinding the herbs up into a paste. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“My dreams aren’t just dreams, though. I’m trying to remember, I can feel it, it’s just on the other side of a wall and my mind’s banging at it…” Lucy rubbed at her eyes, looking incredibly young and tired and lost.

Flynn gently tucked her hair out of the way. “Lucy… have you considered that maybe… maybe you were, ah, with a family that wasn’t as kind as they should be?”

“What do you mean?”

“That you were hit, or starved, or—or something. Trauma like that can result in memory loss.”

“No, I—I had someone. She calls to me at night. Sometimes she yells at me for forgetting her. I loved her.”

“And your parents?”

“I… I don’t know.” Lucy looked like she might cry. “What does my journal say?”

Flynn took the journal out and passed it to her. “It says that you loved your little sister very much. That your older brothers were entitled and spoiled and you liked to play pranks on them. That you loved your mother but feared you couldn’t measure up to her standards. That your father was cold and distant. You had a complicated family, like many of us.”

Lucy smoothed her hand over the cover of the journal. “This is my handwriting. But I didn’t write any of this. If that makes sense. Whoever I was… she feels like someone else, now.”

“Maybe she is.” Flynn finished preparing the herbs. “All right, I need you to open your coat for me, this gets smeared on your chest.”

Lucy hesitated. “I…”

“If you’d rather I didn’t look…”

“No, it’s just, um.” Lucy sighed, then unbuttoned her coat and took off her shirt.

Flynn nearly dropped the ointment.

Her chest was littered with scars. They looked hastily stitched up, some of them, clearly by an amateur. They stood out, tight white and pink pinched skin, some from what looked like odd, jagged cuts, one or two from what looked like…

Like bullet wounds.

“Not very pretty, I know,” Lucy whispered.

Flynn cleared his throat, dipping his fingers into the ointment and starting to smear it on her chest. “We all have scars,” he said absently, trying not to make a big deal out of it. “I don’t suppose you remember what caused these.”

“No. I remember getting stitched up from them, though. That’s the first clear memory I have. Someone dragged me through the snow and told me to be quiet and still. And then it’s all a blur again, and I’m in pain, and I woke up in a small house somewhere. A blonde woman, the one who told me to hide the diamond, she gave me her coat—said it was her husband’s—and she stitched me all up.”

“And you didn’t stay with her?”

“She told me I wasn’t safe with her. I had my necklace, my Paris necklace, and she said to get to Paris I had to get to St. Petersburg. So as soon as I was well enough I started walking. I planned to write to her but… I heard she died, in the revolution, only about a week after I’d left. A stray bullet.”

Lucy fingered the lining of her coat. Flynn knew now why she wouldn’t part with it. “I’m sorry.”

“Her name was Darya,” Lucy said softly. “She was so kind to me.”

Flynn hummed, finishing putting the ointment on her. He wasn’t touching anywhere, ah, inappropriate, but this was still the closest he’d been to Lucy since he’d met her, and it was making his heart race. “Was her husband a guard or something?”

“Oh, no, I mean they got married very young, they were only eighteen. His father was a guard, though, she said he wouldn’t understand. I don’t think her father-in-law was a very kind man, from the way she talked about him. But she said her husband was good.”

“All finished,” Flynn said, pulling his hand away quickly before he did something stupid like cupped her face or flattened it against her chest to feel her heartbeat. “That should help.”

Lucy smiled softly at him. “Thank you, Flynn.”

He swallowed, forced a small smile. “Any time. And thank you for, ah, I know sharing that must have been hard.”

“You’re… I know it’s strange but you’re the easiest person to talk to that I’ve ever met,” Lucy replied.

Oh, God, if that didn’t make his heart do dangerous calisthenics. “Yeah, well, maybe it’s because we have a lot in common.”

“Oh?”

“We’ve both lost family.” Ouch, Flynn, bad start. “And we’re both geniuses.”

Lucy laughed a little at that. “Way to sneak some self-flattery in there.”

He helped her to lie down. “How about you go to sleep, princess, hmm?”

Lucy stared up at him, her eyes soft and shining. “Garcia? Do you really believe I’m the princess?”

 _No_ , his heart screamed. If she was the princess, it meant she was out of his reach, and if she was out of his reach, it meant he had to admit that he wanted her in his reach in the first place, and he couldn’t go through that again. Not after… no. He just couldn’t.

“Yes,” he told her, drawing the coat up over her. “You’ll knock ‘em dead in Paris.”

He sat by the fire and watched Lucy fall asleep, her chest rising and falling easily, no sign of pain on her face.

Lucy must have been another victim of the revolution, somehow, and this Darya had saved her. She probably even knew this Darya from before and just didn’t remember. Yes, that had to be it. Dozens of people died in the revolution, it wasn’t like the Romanovs were the only victims.

That had to be it.

 

* * *

 

Lucy was in love with Paris.

As they’d come up over the hill towards the city and she’d first seen it, her heart had stopped cold in fear. She’d felt like she was moving forward and moving backward at the same moment, striding into a past that was as uncertain as her future. Every night she could feel the wings of her consciousness beating against the locked window panes in her mind, seeking, growing ever closer to finding the truth, and it terrified her. In a way, being just Lucy was freeing. She could be whoever she wanted to be. She had no ties, no responsibilities, she could do whatever.

But if she was Lyusya… it all changed. She had a legacy, she had a dead family, she had responsibilities. She was no longer simply herself.

She’d stood there on the brink, right at the edge, and had wondered if she should turn back.

But she’d also realized then that if she never found out the truth, she’d regret it.

So she’d hurried to catch up with the boys.

Now she was in Paris, and oh, she never wanted to leave. The fashions! The food! The artists painting on the streets! The music!

“Where do you want to go?” Flynn asked. “Rufus is going to talk to Mason and Jiya privately so the city’s yours for tonight.”

She was greedy, she wanted everything.

“Notre Dame,” she said. “To start.”

Flynn laughed and let her take his arm. “You and your history, princess.”

“Says the man who can quote just about every great general ever at me.”

She knew she was running pell-mell through the city like some kind of ricocheting bullet, going to see the sights and soak it all up like she was running out of time, but Flynn didn’t seem to mind. He let her go wherever she wanted, he let her try out her French on passersby (she’d picked it up extremely quickly, Rufus had said, and sometimes it felt like she’d always known the language), and he bought her a _pain au chocolat_ and hoisted her up so she could peer in the windows of the opera house.

The best part, though, was getting to watch Flynn be more relaxed than she’d ever seen him before. He laughed easily, smiling at her as she talked to people, as she gazed at the artwork in the museums, as she wandered through the Notre Dame, pointing out the statues and stained-glass windows in a hushed voice.

She wasn’t sure why she felt like she had to cram everything in today. The duke lived permanently in Paris, she would theoretically have plenty of time to explore.

Maybe it was that she knew this was her only time to do it with Flynn.

She loved how relaxed Flynn was right now, she really did, but she loved all of Flynn’s other sides, too, how he challenged her and was honest with her, how he was gruff but made sure she was warm and fed and safe. That was how she felt with him—safe. For the first time since she could remember.

“It’s almost dinner,” Flynn said quietly as they walked along the Seine. “We should get back, see how Rufus is doing.”

“Do you think he got to see Jiya?”

“I hope so.” Flynn absently wrapped his arm around her shoulders to keep her warm, then peered at her coat. “What’s this?”

He fingered the lining of the collar, where a small _W.L._ had been sewn in. “Oh, that was the initials of Darya’s husband. I presume, anyway.”

“Huh.” Flynn looked like gears were turning in his head. Lucy shivered and he pulled her into his side. “Come on, we have to make you look nice for your interview.”

“Garcia… do you really think I can do this?”

Flynn paused, staring out over the river, then swallowed hard. “Larisa used to say, it doesn’t matter if you think you can or you can’t. You have to, so you find a way.” He gave a bittersweet smile. “She had faith in the idea that you can always do more than you think you can, once the chips are down.”

Lucy nodded, wondering what kind of person Larisa must’ve been to win the dedication of a man like Flynn. Clearly a determined woman, judging by what Flynn had just said. She must’ve had to be, to deal with Flynn’s stubbornness.

She hid a smile at the thought. Flynn caught it and went pink. “What?”

“Nothing.” God, she wanted to do something stupid like hold his hand. “Let’s go.”

Flynn’s face grew somber. “Yes, let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

Rufus had to speak to the boy who made the grocery deliveries, who spoke to the kitchen maid, who spoke to the butler, who spoke to the secretary, who spoke to Mason, but eventually the word got around and he could stop standing awkwardly in the alley behind the lavish townhouse.

Connor Mason stepped out into the back alley, wrinkling his nose a little. Rufus’s breath caught. Connor looked so much older and sadder.

Mason looked up—and stood still.

“I thought it might be an awful prank of some kind,” he croaked. “Rufus—Rufus my boy, it’s you?”

Rufus nodded. “I made it out.”

Mason yanked him into a hug, his voice thick. “Oh, you ridiculous thing, we thought—well we feared—”

“I’m here,” Rufus assured him, hugging back. “And I’ve got—I’ve got someone I need you to meet.”

Mason looked around, seeing no one.

Rufus rolled his eyes. “She’s not here. She’s with my friend, they’re exploring the city. But you need to meet her, Mason. I found her.”

“Who?”

“The princess.”

Mason scoffed.

“No, really, it’s her—I didn’t think so at first but she knows things, things nobody else could know, and she’s sweet and good and Mason, you have to get the duke to meet her.”

“Ethan will see no more girls, Rufus. Jiya and I have been interviewing them still on the sly but none of have passed muster and if we bring him another one who disappoints him—”

“She won’t disappoint him. She’s real, she’s Lyusya, I’d swear on my life.”

Mason flinched. “Perhaps we should not swear on that, Rufus.”

“Sorry. But please, Mason, please, just this one favor for me. That’s all I ask. Once the duke speaks with her he’ll know it’s her.”

Mason sighed. “I can’t get you an audience, Rufus, I’m sorry.”

“Connor…”

“Do you like the ballet, Rufus?”

Rufus paused. “The—the what?”

“Does your friend like the ballet? I remember the princess was rather fond of it.”

“Ah, yes, she does, I think. She speaks French, by the way, like the Romanovs.”

“Then she’ll love the Paris Ballet. They’re doing a performance tonight. I can get you some tickets, I think it’ll be a lovely way to celebrate your return.” Mason paused. “The duke is fond of the ballet as well.”

Rufus saw what his friend was getting at. “I’d… we’re rather… we can’t go to the ballet looking as we are.”

“I’ll give you the cash, it’s not a problem. But Rufus—I didn’t set this up. You run into the duke at the ballet. Understood?”

“Yes, I understand.” Rufus took a deep breath. “Connor? May I see her?”

Mason paused. “See who?”

“See Jiya.” His heart ached to know that she was so close.

Mason’s eyes grew sad. “Ah, that might be a delicate matter. We must handle it carefully.”

“What? Why?” Oh, God, she wasn’t married was she?

Mason put a hand on his shoulder. “Rufus… Jiya… you must understand, she said that she saw you shot.”

“Is she with someone else?”

“No, no heavens no, she’s still very much in love with you. It’s just that—well—she thinks you’re dead.”

Well, fuck.


	6. Chapter 6

Rufus was led up the back stairs into a bedroom, presumably Mason’s, where a hot bath was drawn up for him and Mason fetched a maid to tailor some clothes from Mason’s wardrobe for Rufus to use.

“What about your friend?” Mason asked, as Rufus soaked in the first hot bath he’d had in two years.

“He’s six foot four, so…”

“We’ll get him something,” Mason said airily, a man not used to things being impossible. “And the girl?”

“She has a dress… or I think she does, she and Flynn were supposed to buy her one today.”

“It won’t be good enough, have her come here and borrow one of Jiya’s.”

Rufus swallowed hard at the mention of Jiya’s name. He wanted to see her so badly, but he also trusted Mason’s judgment about how and when.

He let himself be cleaned, and put into a nice new suit, and sent a messenger to their hotel to tell Flynn and Lucy to come over so Mason could fuss over them. Then he was led downstairs to the parlor.

And told to wait.

He tried not to pace, tried not to hold his breath. It had been two years, she’d thought he was dead, he could manage his expectations…

“Connor, honestly, what is so important that you had to…”

Rufus turned, his breath catching.

Jiya stood at the bottom of the stairs, her eyes wide and her mouth open. She was clutching the banister so hard that her hand shook, her knuckles white. Her hair was done up with curls instead of the simple braid she’d used to wear, and she wore a fashionable dark purple dress instead of her old soft gray one, but… but it was her. It was _her_.

She was breathtaking.

For a moment Jiya stood there, shaking like a leaf, and Rufus was dumbstruck, unsure what to say, what to do. He’d waited so long for this and now that it was here, he had no idea what he was supposed to act.

“Rufus?” The word was a pained whisper.

Rufus opened his arms, feeling awkward. “Yes, it’s me.”

Jiya gave a wild sob and then flew across the room, crashing into him, her hands framing his face, shaking, planting frantic kisses all over his face. He clung to her, held her tightly, trying to soothe her as she trembled in his grasp. “Shh, shh, my love, it’s all right, it’s me, I’m here.”

“You were _shot_.” Jiya wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. “They dragged you away, you weren’t moving, Rufus—”

“I made it. I would’ve bled out but someone found me and got me help, I’m okay, I made it. I’m alive, I made it.”

Jiya kissed him again, this time on the mouth, deep and insistent. Rufus felt like she was pouring warmth into him, like he’d been cold for years and was just now coming to life.

“I’m here,” he whispered, cradling the back of her head as she sobbed. “I’m here, I’m not leaving.”

“No you’re not,” Jiya said ferociously. “I’m never letting you out of my sight.”

“I’m sorry it took so long. The borders are closed, they don’t even let letters through sometimes, I didn’t know who to trust—”

“You’re _here_ ,” Jiya whispered, her voice breaking. She took his face in her hands again, pulling back so that she could look him in the eye. “You’re here, you’re really here.”

Rufus felt a grin breaking over his face, even as his eyes watered. “I am, and I’m not going anywhere.”

At last, Jiya started to smile. “You’re real.”

“I’m real.”

He picked her up around the waist and spun her around, making her laugh. “I’m real and I love you and I’m staying right here.” He set her back down. “Right here with you.”

Jiya kissed him hard, and he got his arm around her waist and dipped her because fuck it, he could and he wanted to and so he would.

When he pulled her back up to standing, he finally got to see one of her old blinding smiles on her face. God, he’d cross oceans for that smile.

A loud sniffle broke his concentration and they turned to see Mason standing there, hastily wiping away a tear. “Oh, don’t mind me, carry on with that rather spectacular kissing.”

Jiya ran over to him and hugged him. “How long, how long have you known?”

“Just this morning,” Mason replied. “It was quite a shock, let me tell you. I thought I’d had a little too much brandy last night.”

Rufus walked over, hugging Mason, and then Jiya was back in his arms again and kissing his cheek and resting her head on his shoulder, and he could feel his heart settling into place again. “Thank you, Connor. For taking care of her.”

“I could do nothing less. And this place is your home now, too, I hope you know. That position at my office is still open for you.”

“You’re the best.”

Mason smiled at him, realized he was being emotional still, and cleared his throat. “Now, ah, to business. Jiya, I don’t suppose you have a spare dress for a lovely young lady to wear?”

“Um, maybe? Who for?”

Rufus grinned at her. “Oh, I’ve got so much to tell you.”

 

* * *

 

Flynn led Lucy back to the small hotel room that they’d rented with the last of the money from the sale of her diamond. It wasn’t much, the walls thin and the paint peeling, but it was a roof and had two beds (he’d have to take the floor, he supposed) so it was good enough for now.

“We’ll have to get you looking presentable,” he joked. He thought that Lucy looked perfect the way she was now, with her pink cheeks and windswept hair, but they had to get her looking just right for the duke. Like a proper princess.

Lucy shucked off her coat. Flynn’s fingers itched to look at it again. He couldn’t be sure, it was probably just his own mind making connections where there were none because he was at the end of the day a lovestruck idiot who couldn’t get over himself, but he couldn’t help but wonder…

Lucy sat down on one of the beds. “Flynn?”

“Yes?” He saw that her hands were shaking.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Lucy whispered. She moved to cover her chest instinctively, and then he watched her stop and put her hands down, forcing herself to stay calm.

He walked over and sat next to her on the bed. “Why not?”

“Because I… if I’m the princess, then suddenly—I’m not just me. I’m not just living for myself. I have to live for everyone else, too, all those nobles who want to relive those days… like poor Count Ipolitov.”

Flynn’s hands itched to reach out to her, but he didn’t know if his touch would be welcome. “You’re just tired, Lucy. You’ve had a long day. I think you need a quick nap, and then you’ll feel stronger.”

He got up, turning down the bedsheets. “You’re stronger than you know, princess. It’s not everyone who can survive almost dying, and losing their memory, and sneaking out of Russia and running through the woods for two months to get to Paris.”

Lucy gave him a small, wavering smile, climbing under the sheets. “I don’t think I’m very strong.”

“We rarely see ourselves clearly,” Flynn replied. His mother had told him that often, when the revolution had started to get violent and he’d asked her how people could do this to their fellow humans.

A knock sounded on the door as he tucked her in. “I’ll get it.”

It was a messenger—apparently Rufus’s friend was going to outfit them in style and have them go to the ballet to meet the duke there. Flynn’s stomach churned into a cold lump.

It was real. It was happening.

“We’ll be there in an hour. Lucy needs her rest.”

The messenger nodded, then hurried off. Flynn closed the door softly and looked back to see Lucy already asleep.

Flynn crossed to the chair and sat there, wondering if maybe he’d doze off himself. She looked so peaceful like this, none of her usual fire but none of her usual worry either.

He found himself wishing, impossibly, that the duke would find her out. That he’d reject her, and then Flynn and Lucy could go and find her real family, the one who’d given her that key—if they were even still alive—and they’d be together, they’d build a new home here, be each other’s family.

It was a stupid, mad hope, and yet he couldn’t help it.

He settled back into the chair and dozed.

 

* * *

 

_“You forgot me!” The girl is screaming again but now she’s in a blood-spattered dress, the blood is dripping from bullet holes, her eyes are dark and hollow. “You don’t really love me, you forgot me!”_

_“Tell me who you are!” she cries out. Ghosts are swirling around her, people grab her roughly, she’s shoved into a dark room, she knows she’s going to die here._

_“Pray, my darling, pray,” someone whispers, Mama, Mama is so religious._

_She clutches Amy to her, tells her to hold onto her, she recognizes the faces of the men pointing their guns at her—how could they do this how could they she knows them they know her how could they—_

_“Amy hold onto me Amy don’t look don’t look—”_

_She screams as pain rips through her, as the jewels Mama sewed into her corset cut into her skin with the force of the bullets, as fire erupts in her shoulder and hip. Everyone is screaming. Her sister slumps against her, an inadvertent human shield, why didn’t she put Amy behind her, everything is pain—_

_“Shh. Stay still. Stay still. Shh. Don’t move.”_

_Hands feeling her pulse, feeling underneath her clothes. “She’s dead. No, I’ve got it, I’ll get her to the grave, just show me the way.”_

_Shh. Stay still. Don’t move._

_Shh. Stay still. Don’t move._

_Amy’s dead eyes stare at her as she’s half-dragged, half-carried, Amy’s dead eyes, Amy—I’ll never forget you Amy, Amy, Amy—_

_She leaves a track of blood through the snow, she fades in and out, pain everywhere, shh, shh, stay still, don’t move, Amy—_

_“You forgot me!”_

Lucy screamed herself awake.

 

* * *

 

Flynn jolted back to consciousness as Lucy screamed. He shot up, ready to fight any and all comers, only to find Lucy sitting up in bed, clutching at her chest, tears streaming down her face.

“Lucy.” He crossed over to her and she reached for him, grasping him with trembling hands.

“I can feel it,” she whispered as he held her. “I can feel them in me, it hurts—I can feel—Amy, she was dead, I held her in front of me I should’ve held her in back—”

Flynn stroked her hair as she rested her head on his chest. He hadn’t held anyone like this since… fuck, since Wyatt.

God, he hated that he still had feelings for the guy even as he had feelings for this woman.

Maybe it was because both Wyatt and Lucy were simultaneously strong and lost.

“It’s just a nightmare,” he told her. “It’s not real, it’s gone now.”

“It was real,” Lucy insisted. She pulled away, staring up at him. “Flynn, it was real. I remember—”

“You need to breathe, Lucy.”

“I don’t need to breathe, I need to figure it out, I had it, it’s right there—”

“Lucy. We’re so close. We’re going to meet your grandfather, and it’ll all fall into place.”

Lucy gave him an odd, scrutinizing look. “I know you’re only doing this for Rufus, Flynn. You don’t have to keep bolstering me.”

“For Rufus?”

“Yes. You get me to the duke, Rufus gets to Jiya. You get… what?”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Lucy.”

“Why,” Lucy demanded. “Why are you here, Flynn? You don’t like the monarchy, you bow to no one, you’ve made it quite clear you hate the Romanovs and the Bolsheviks, why does it matter to you if a stupid princess gets by or not?”

He swallowed hard. “Because I—because—” He looked away, away from the terrible heat of Lucy’s gaze. “I was twelve years old, and it was a parade in June. I can still remember it more clearly than I remember a lot of things. I don’t know why there was a parade, or what it was for, but I remember my mother and I went to see it.

“And I saw her. The princess. She was eight years old but she sat like a queen already, so solemn and regal, and… and I thought, she’s just a child, and already, she had to be so grown up and serious… it seemed unfair to me.

“I called out to her, and somehow over everyone screaming she heard me, and she looked down—and I held out my hand. I had some wild idea of helping her down and helping her run away because—because no child should have to be so responsible like that. And she smiled, and reached her hand out back…”

His throat closed up and he had to breathe carefully to keep himself steady. “When I heard what happened I looked for her. She was sixteen by then but all I could remember was that child and I thought—well, fuck, she might be Romanov but she’s still so young and it’s not her fault, and in that moment I’d felt she was as trapped in her role as the poor were in theirs, and I had another wild idea of protecting her somehow—” He laughed a little at himself. “—I guess she just brought that out in me. I’d just lost my mother and Larisa and it was like I couldn’t save them but if I could just save her… but I looked for her, through all the graves, and never found her.”

He looked over at Lucy—and saw her staring in the distance. “Lucy?”

“The parade,” she whispered. “It was hot… and there was a boy, he was so skinny and had dirt on his face… he dodged between the guards…”

Flynn’s heart stopped.

“He reaches out and I smile and—” Lucy stopped, stood up, reached her hand out as if in a trance. “He bowed.”

The whole world seemed to tilt sideways.

He hadn’t said that he’d bowed—he never would have admitted that out loud, not in a hundred years. It was a stupid, silly thing for a boy to do, and he’d never bowed before or since and had ridiculed others for doing the same but in that moment something about her, about that child so regal and serene and struggling not to smile back at him, it had done something to him.

And Lucy—with her scars and her nightmares and her odd knowledge and her missing years and her eyes and now this, the final nail in the coffin, he’d found her, he’d actually found her and now—now—

Lucy looked over at him. “Garcia.” She looked like she was about to cry. “Garcia I remember.”

His eyes burned, his throat burned, everything burned, his heart was shattering into a thousand pieces, he loved her he loved her he _loved_ her and she was the princess and she was standing right in front of him but she might as well be a million miles away because he could never, ever have her.

Lucy reached for him, her eyes shining, and he wanted, oh how he wanted to reach back for her, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t give in, or it would be that much more painful when he lost her.

“Your highness,” he blurted out, his voice low and rough. He sank down on one knee, bowing.

He felt Lucy’s hand brush through his hair. “Don’t,” she said, sounding terribly lost. “Please don’t.”

Flynn stood up, avoiding her eyes. “We should go, get you dressed for the duke.”

“Flynn—”

He picked up her coat and held it out to her for her to slide her arms in. “Time’s wasting.”

Lucy bit her lip, then put on the coat, wrapping herself up securely. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

Wyatt liked Paris more than he wanted to admit.

It was just so… alive. Leningrad was bleak. It was like the heart had been ripped out of it. The nobles, the monarchy, they had to go, they hadn’t been taking care of the people and living in luxury, but the revolution had taken the heart out of everything. It had drained them.

But Paris, Paris was vibrant and pulsing and flashing with emotion and art and _joie de vivre_ , and Wyatt kind of wanted to stay here forever.

But he couldn’t. He had his mission.

It had only taken a few discreet enquiries to figure out where Flynn was staying. A six foot four guy who looked like he wanted to clock everyone who looked at him sideways tended to leave an impression on people.

And where Flynn was, Lucy would be.

Wyatt’s stomach turned as he stared up at the hotel. He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to go back, he didn’t want to fail, he didn’t…

Fuck, his whole life he’d been raised by his father to fight for the cause, no matter what the cost. When his father had gone out that morning… all he’d said was that it was time.

Darya had been nervous all day. Wyatt himself had felt oddly sick and he hadn’t known why, he’d been only eighteen, newly married because nothing was certain in this war, in this world, and then there’d been gunfire and his father had returned home with a grim look on his face and had grabbed Darya and told her she was supposed to check the bodies of the women.

The bodies.

If his father could—could make that kind of sacrifice for the good of the nation then surely Wyatt could get rid of one girl?

But God, she hadn’t done anything, she was just a street sweeper. She was sweet.

He liked her.

But if he wasn't his duty then what was he? Who was he?

Two figures exited the hotel room and Wyatt ducked into an alley out of the way. It was Flynn and Lucy.

They were walking arm in arm, the both of them looking oddly silent and tense.

Wyatt frowned. Weren’t they happy? They were in Paris, they were about to meet the duke, or so Wyatt presumed. They were so close to their goal.

Flynn was hunched a little, and his face was—it was tense, Wyatt knew that face, that look, it was how Flynn had gotten right before they’d had their argument. It was… wow, he hadn’t realized it in the moment, angry and self-righteous, but Flynn looked really hurt.

Lucy didn’t look all that happy either, she looked pensive.

What was wrong?

He watched as they walked by, feeling the oddest urge to announce himself, to ask what was wrong.

No, stupid, stupid to do that.

“Why do we have to go to the ballet?” Lucy asked, sounding confused.

The ballet?

Looked like he’d have to go get a ticket, then.


	7. Chapter 7

Lucy took a deep breath as she looked at herself in the mirror. A good hot bath had done wonders, but she still didn’t quite recognize herself.

“You look beautiful,” Jiya assured her, smiling.

Lucy thought it was rather the other way around. Jiya was self-assured, wearing her lovely dress like she’d been born with it on, fashionable and sophisticated. Lucy felt like a sparrow with a peacock’s feather strapped to it.

Her hair had been done up and curled, and she was now wearing a soft light blue dress with a corset top and a gorgeous folded skirt. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, let’s show Mason. I think you look like a princess.”

Lucy swallowed. “All—all right.”

Jiya looked at her as she took her arm and led her down the stairs. “What’s wrong?”

“Everyone acts like remembering who I am is a good thing. But all I can remember is the pain and the fear. Losing my sister. It makes me not want to be who I am because if I’m that person, I’m that pain, I’m that loss.”

“There were good things though,” Jiya replied. “I was in the palace too, a servant but… I saw you. You were happy. You had fun. You and your sister loved each other so much, you were the apple of your mother’s eye. You’ll remember those things with time.”

She paused, swallowing. “When I thought Rufus was gone… for a long time all I could remember was his death—or what I thought was his death. Watching him be shot and dragged away. But as time went on I was able to remember the other times. How he would pick me flowers, how he saved to buy me nice Christmas presents, the way he’d kiss me so soft… you’ll remember the good with your family, too. It’s hard, it hurts, but it’ll work through you and then you’ll be able to smile when you think of them.”

“I hope so,” Lucy replied.

“You do still have family,” Jiya added. “The duke—he’s been devastated over you. He loves you so much, Lucy, you have no idea. He’ll help you be happy again.”

Lucy tried to think back to her grandfather. When she did, she smelled cinnamon and oranges, she remembered warm hugs…

…and that tune. Something about the music.

_Someone holds me safe and warm…_

Something else, as well. A secret. What secret?

_“Why do you have to stay in Paris? Why can’t you be here all the time?”_

“Lucy.”

She looked up. They were at the foot of the stairs, and Rufus was gaping at her. “Holy shit, Lucy, you look amazing.”

Flynn had been facing towards the window. He turned, saw her—and froze.

Lucy’s breath caught. Mason had somehow gotten Flynn a proper suit and he looked… her gut tightened. He looked handsome, to put it lightly.

Flynn stared at her, his eyes wide.

“Oh, don’t you look a proper princess,” Mason said. “Doesn’t she, Flynn?”

“I—” Flynn cleared his throat. “You look—you look good.”

Rufus rolled his eyes. “You always know how to compliment someone. Didn’t you tell me your opening line to Wyatt was ‘your problem is that you’re pretty’?”

“His _what_?” Lucy asked.

Flynn gave Rufus a look that could’ve set Rufus on fire.

Lucy walked over to Flynn. “What’s this about—Wyatt Logan? The Bolshevik?”

Flynn’s glare at Rufus intensified. “Thank you, Rufus, thank you so much.”

“I’ll get the carriage, shall I?” Mason said, hurrying out.

Jiya dragged Rufus out of the room. Flynn took a deep breath. He looked like he was headed for the guillotine. “Wyatt Logan and I were—we had—ah. That is. It was a while ago.”

“Do you…” Had she misread him this whole time? “Are you, um, I don’t know the proper term…”

“Both,” Flynn blurted out. “Both, I—I was in love with Larisa, she really did exist, women are beautiful. I mean you’re—I didn’t—not that I—ah, yes, it’s. We could say I’m equal opportunity?”

Lucy had to bite her lip to hold in her smile. “Good to know.”

“It was—it was nothing, honestly, he was playing me to try and arrest me.” Flynn’s hurt tone of voice made Lucy think it wasn’t ‘nothing’ at all. “That’s the type of person he is.”

Lucy frowned. “How did you escape?”

“Ah, he didn’t, um, arrest me. We had a yelling match, things were said, he stormed out and never came back.”

“…so he never arrested you. He just… had an argument with you and then left you alone.”

Flynn frowned at her. “What do you want me to say, Lucy?”

She shrugged. “Nothing, it’s just, when Wyatt spoke to me he seemed rather adamant that you were the dangerous one in the relationship.”

“ _I’m_ the dangerous—he’s the one that lied to me, spent a week getting me to—I’m not having this conversation.”

“I haven’t spent a whole lot of time talking to him but his attempts at flirting with me were rather… sweet but—I can’t see him actively seducing anyone.”

“ _He flirted with you!?_ ” Flynn looked ready to go all the way back to Leningrad just to punch Wyatt in the face.

“I can flirt with whoever I want,” Lucy shot back, tilting her chin up. “I’m not spoken for. And even if I was, who says I can’t have two men if two want me?”

Flynn went bright pink in the face. “If you’re so determined to have him then why didn’t you stay in Leningrad and court him?”

“Well to start with he was _shy_ , which is why I find it rather ridiculous that he was able to seduce you, unless you’re usually that easy and you’re just deciding to give me a challenge.”

“Give you a—a _what_ , I’m—I’m not giving you anything.”

“And that is exactly the problem!”

“Do you want me to be giving you something? I wasn’t aware that running for our lives across a continent was the perfect time to start up a torrid affair!”

“But sleeping with a Bolshevik who could turn you in at any second, _that’s_ the time to have a torrid affair.”

“It wasn’t torrid, I was in love with the stupid bastard, and then he turned around and was playing me the whole time, I don’t do _torrid_ , if I’m going to make the grand mistake of sleeping with someone then apparently my habit seems to be leaving my heart on the line with it!”

Lucy felt like she’d been slapped in the face, her chest heaving, her face hot and, she was sure, bright pink just like Flynn’s.

So he’d been in love with Wyatt. Clearly still was, even if he didn’t realize it himself. And while she’d been wanting him this whole time, thinking maybe he wanted her…

She supposed that she just wasn’t worth putting his heart on the line for.

Ah. Well… then.

“I… I’m sorry,” she whispered. “He clearly meant quite a lot to you and it’s… it always hurts, to know that the person you love doesn’t love you in return.”

The color drained from Flynn’s face. “Lucy—it’s not that—I—”

“I’m sorry I pried, into your personal life like that. And you won’t—I won’t spread it around, you know, that you—I remember when I was a girl I thought I’d like to kiss another girl instead of a—”

_“Grandpapa, what if I want to marry a girl instead of a boy? Boys are so stupid.”_

The secret.

Her grandfather’s secret, why he had to stay in Paris.

Lucy swayed a little and Flynn grabbed her shoulders, steadying her. “Lucy?”

“I remember,” she whispered. “I remember him, I remember my grandfather!” A smile spread over her face, she remembered him, she _remembered_ him, Grandpapa, who told her they’d be together in Paris.

Flynn smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Then we’d better get to the ballet.”

Lucy’s face fell. “No, Flynn, I—”

He let go of her and moved past her. “Rufus? Mason? Jiya? We’re ready.”

Lucy swallowed. She didn’t understand that man, one moment hot the next cold, drawing her in close then pushing her away. Everything was a jumble. She wanted to scream at him, she wanted to trap him in a room and kiss him, she wanted to never see him again.

If this was love, she wasn’t sure she wanted it.

“Yes,” she said, forcing a smile and raising her voice. “We’re ready.”

To the ballet, then.

To her grandfather.

 

* * *

 

Ethan sighed as he climbed the stairs with Mason to his box. He was a regular attendee at the ballet, but _Swan Lake_ was playing tonight and he wasn’t sure if he could handle it. It had been Lyusya’s favorite.

Mason had convinced him, however, said the new prima ballerina was not to be missed, and so he’d come.

He felt so old, and so tired, and so alone. He’d thought was it was to be alone before, leaving his family and moving to Paris and only loving in the shadows and the dark. But now he knew. His family was gone, his granddaughter was gone, and he was truly alone.

He sat down in his box and took out his glasses. Might as well get a good look at the other attendees, see if there was anyone he ought to say hello to. Many of the other Russian nobility had fled to Paris and he did still have a duty, dull as it was.

Ethan put the glasses to his eyes, scanned the boxes—and froze.

No.

No, it couldn’t be.

The girl was being helped into her seat by a tall, handsome—oh very handsome, good for her—gentleman, her thick dark hair delicately curled and pulled back from her face, allowing her sharp cheekbones and wide, distinct dark eyes to pull focus. She smiled like quicksilver, wide and bright, and Ethan’s breath caught.

She smiled just like Lyusya.

Could it be? She looked to be the right age. Maybe…

No.

Ethan set his glasses down firmly in his lap. Lyusya was dead.

He looked down at the dancers, bitterly recalling some of the lines from the song he’d used to sing with his granddaughter.

_Painted wings, silver snow, whirling like a ballet. Things my heart yearns to know…_

He looked away. He couldn’t let himself hope, even for a moment. He couldn’t have his heart be broken for the dozenth time.

 

* * *

 

Lucy’s breath caught as Rufus pointed out the duke. “That’s him, in that box to the left.”

Her heart stuttered. He looked so much older than she remembered. “Should I go to him?”

“Not yet,” Flynn advised. “Wait until intermission. Jiya will make the arrangements.”

Her hands shook. Flynn grabbed one, squeezing. “It’s all right, Lucy. You’re almost there.”

Lucy swallowed. “I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff.”

“You’re about to get your family back,” Flynn told her. “Your home. It’s okay to be scared but this is a good thing. Lucy, look at me.”

She looked at him. Flynn’s dark eyes bored into hers, firm but gentle. “I promise, you’ll get your family back, all right? Once he speaks to you—he’ll know who you are.”

Lucy nodded. She trusted Flynn, even if she wasn’t sure what to do about him and the way he made her feel.

She took a deep breath. They were almost there.

She could do this.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt paced the lobby, trying to calm his nerves.

The times had to change. The world had to change. Lyusya and the nobility were a dangerous remnant from the past and they would drag the world backwards if they could—even if Lucy didn’t mean to. She’d be a symbol for the people to rally behind and they couldn’t have that, not when they had just won their freedom.

Knowing this didn’t change what he felt in his heart.

He cared about her. And he l—he still couldn’t quite shake his soft spot for Flynn.

But love wasn’t what revolution was for.

He nodded at the ushers, then walked up the steps to the balcony, trying to find what box she was in. If he could draw her away during intermission…

God it made him sick to think of.

He peered into a room—and saw them.

Lucy was staring at the dancers, rapt, joyful. Rufus looked bored. Flynn wasn’t watching the dancers at all.

He was watching Lucy.

_Looks like we’re both suckers, huh, Garcia?_

Flynn’s head turned, as if he’d heard Wyatt’s thoughts. Wyatt ducked away, his heart hammering, and hurried back down the stairs.

But he hadn’t been fast enough. A moment later he heard thundering footsteps behind him, and then—

“Wyatt!”

Oh, fuck.

 

* * *

 

Flynn caught sight of the last face he expected to see in Paris—and peering at them through the window in the door.

“I’ll be right back,” he murmured, letting go of Lucy’s hand and slipping out.

Then he ran. “Wyatt!”

Wyatt paused, shoulders hunching, then turned slowly. “Garcia.”

They stared at one another.

“What are you doing here,” Flynn growled, thinking he already knew.

Wyatt’s jaw clenched. “If you can’t guess…”

Flynn strode up to him, jabbing him in the chest with his finger. “If you hurt her, I swear to God—”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Wyatt hissed. “My orders were to kill you, too.”

“I bet you loved that. What’s taken you so long?”

A look of devastation flickered across Wyatt’s face. It was brief, but not brief enough. “Oh my God. You’re in love with her.”

Wyatt recovered fast. “Speak for yourself, I saw how you were looking at her in there.”

“You wouldn’t know what I felt if I gave you an instruction manual.”

“Says the man who wouldn’t know love if it hit him in the face with a brick.”

“I’m the one who doesn’t know love?” Flynn gave a harsh bark of laughter. “That’s rich, that’s really fucking rich after you tricked me into falling for you—”

“Excuse me? You tricked me, you pickpocketed me! Who does that to their boyfriend?”

“Oh, that’s what we were, I thought I was just your dirty little secret, didn’t you say that at one point? You had some choice words for what I was for liking men, if I recall correctly.”

That had hurt like a motherfucker, Wyatt whipping out those harsh, biased, ugly words. But if Wyatt had wanted to get ugly?

Fine.

So Flynn had gotten ugly back.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt couldn’t believe this bullshit. “You had some choice words for the Bolsheviks, if I’m remembering right. Don’t act like you were some victim, you were—”

“All right, fine, I screwed up, you happy? But you didn’t do any better, you never told me about your mission, you were supposed to arrest me—”

“And I didn’t, that wasn’t a clue to you!?” Wyatt got right up in Flynn’s face, uncaring that they were in the middle of a goddamn set of stairs and anyone, including the ushers, could walk by at any moment. “I couldn’t arrest you, asshole, I wasn’t going to let you die!”

Flynn grabbed him by the jacket and Wyatt thought he was about to get hit—and then Flynn’s mouth was crashing against his and Wyatt was savagely kissing back and he hated and he loved with all of his heart.

Flynn still kissed single-mindedly, like he was laying siege, and Wyatt had the wild thought that this was the stupidest twist of fate ever—that someone had rescued Lucy from the storm, that the man he was in love with had brought her here, that Wyatt had been the one chosen to follow. He got an arm around Flynn’s shoulders, pressing in, and Flynn’s large hand was spanning his back and he hated how simple everything felt in that moment, like everything fell away and there weren’t any hard decisions to make, it was just the two of them.

Wyatt pulled back just enough to suck in a breath, feeling dizzy. Flynn kept a firm hold of him, not letting him pull away. “Wyatt. Wyatt listen to me. She’s really her, she’s really—she’s real.”

Wyatt gave a wild laugh. “Of course she’s convinced you.”

“No.” Flynn made a noise of frustration in the back of his throat. “Wyatt, you met her, did you not recognize your own damn coat?”

Wyatt froze. “My own—my what?”

Flynn dragged him over to an alcove. “Listen. She said she was saved by the woman brought in to make sure the women were dead. The woman dragged her to safety, her name was Darya.”

Wyatt’s stomach dropped out. “What—no, Darya was—she was loyal to the cause, she—”

“The woman gave Lucy her husband’s coat, she’s worn it ever since. The woman died a week after Lucy left to get to Leningrad, but she stitched her up and Lucy still wears that coat and it has your initials on it.”

“It could—”

“Not Russian letters, Wyatt, _English_ letters. W.L. Not ‘sh’ but ‘wuh’, not the Russian symbol for ‘l’, the English one. It’s on the inside of the collar.”

He had lost a coat, actually, around that time. Darya had said she’d given it to another soldier and she’d made him another one so Wyatt hadn’t minded. He hadn’t thought much about it.

She’d kept this huge secret from him and he’d had no idea. Not the slightest.

“You’re—you’re lying,” he croaked out.

Flynn gave him a sad look. “Wyatt.” He brought his hand up, pushing Wyatt’s hair back out of his face. “You know I’m not lying.”

And the thing was—he was right. Flynn was shockingly easy to read for a conman, his emotions deep and vibrant. Or maybe he was just easy for Wyatt to read.

But if she really was the princess…

There was no way he could let her go.

 

* * *

 

Flynn hated how Wyatt still felt like he was supposed to fit in Flynn’s arms. He couldn’t stop fucking touching him now that he’d started, running his hands over him like they were still lovers instead of two exes having it out in a goddamn high class theatre.

Wyatt groaned, resting his head on Flynn’s chest—an old, instinctive habit. “They want her dead. They don’t even want a trial.”

“Then don’t _do_ this.” Flynn turned his face to brush his mouth against Wyatt’s temple. “We can’t have her, Wyatt, neither of us. She belongs in this world, with her family, her grandfather.”

He pulled back, taking Wyatt’s face in his hands. “But we’re out of there, we’re free, we’re in Paris. We can get to America from here, or England, anywhere you want.” God, the stupid hope flaring in his chest. He couldn’t have Lucy, and that hurt like a bitch because he was pretty damn certain he’d love her until the end of time, but he loved Wyatt too and maybe he could actually keep him.

Wyatt swallowed, his blue eyes wide and hurt. “I have a duty, Flynn. I have—you know what’ll happen, they’ll try and reinstate the monarchy and I can’t let that happen, not after my family gave everything—”

It felt like someone had taken a whip straight to his chest, devastating and stinging and cutting deep.

“Darya risked her life to save her, and you can’t spare her life?” Flynn stepped back, his whole body feeling cold. “You care about her, I know you do, and you won’t—you’ll still do this to her?”

“And what about you?” Wyatt shot back. “You didn’t think she was the princess, did you? Not at first. What lies did you feed her, how long did you string her on until you realized the massive fucking coincidence?”

“My—I’ve—I know what I’ve done. But I’m making sure she’s fucking happy and safe. I’m not going to murder her!”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Wyatt said, his hands clenching into fists. “Never betray my country, that’s what I was raised on. Do what’s best for the country. She isn’t what’s best! The time of the Romanovs is over!”

“You’re not _supposed_ to do anything, Wyatt, you don’t owe your country your soul like this!”

“So you want me to be like you, to owe nobody anything?”

The doors were opening for intermission. Fuck, he had to go, he had to convince the duke to see Lucy. “Wyatt for the love of God, don’t hurt her. You don’t want to hurt her and she’s—she’s fucking beautiful and I don’t mean just on the outside. She’s made it this far, please, just let her go. Take me instead if you really need to bring someone’s head back on a pike.”

Wyatt looked sick at the very thought. “I can’t—not—you—” He looked away, blinking rapidly. “God I hate you, do you have any idea how much I hate you?”

“Likewise,” Flynn growled, because he didn’t hate Wyatt at all, he never had. He just wished with all his might that he did.

People were spilling out. And Flynn decided he’d had enough heartbreak for one day. “Do whatever you want. But you listen, Wyatt, you listen good—if you hurt her, I don’t care whatever we shared, I don’t care how much it fucking hurts me—I will kill you.”

Wyatt looked like he was ready to lash out again, but Flynn was done being rejected after going through it twice today, thanks, so he turned and walked away, weaving through the crowd.

He had to find the duke.

 

* * *

 

Lucy got up once intermission was called, looking expectantly, nervously, at Rufus.

Rufus nodded. “It’s time.”

Flynn had left already, no doubt to watch as Mason asked the duke if he’d be so kind as to meet his apprentice, oh and his young companion Miss Lucy. Lucy wanted to march right up and demand that she be seen, that strange sense of entitlement reasserting itself, but she knew that they should probably follow Mason’s lead.

“I’ll take you,” Rufus said quietly. “It’s all right.”

Lucy took his arm and let him lead her out of their box and down towards the duke’s.

As they approached, though, she heard arguing.

“If you think I didn’t notice her—”

“Ethan—”

“You went behind my back, Connor, I told you no more girls—”

“You saw her, surely you can’t deny she looks just like—”

Oh, no.

Lucy’s stomach turned and twisted. She couldn’t see Flynn but found herself desperately wishing he was there for her to hold onto.

“Wait here,” Rufus said, “I’ll see—”

The door opened and Mason stormed out, not even seeing the two of them. Rufus swore under his breath and hurried after Mason, and Lucy…

Lucy crept closer to the door.

She peered in the window. There was the duke, sitting down in his chair, looking—looking so sad, and angry. Her heart went out to him.

“Your grace,” Flynn said quietly.

Lucy’s heart stopped. Flynn was in the corner, looking like he’d been waiting for his chance to speak.

“Are you still there?” The duke scoffed. “So you’re a part of it too. I might have known. Connor’s an intelligent man with a keen eye, it would take a professional to fool him at this point, wouldn’t it?”

A professional?

“Your grace—”

“I know who you are, Flynn.” The duke stood up, and oh, Lucy thought she might know where she got her temper from. The duke wasn’t as tall as Flynn, and he was quite a bit older, but it was clear who held the power in the room at that moment. “I’ve heard about you from the other nobles. Always willing to get them out of Russia, but with a price. A high price! And now you bring me this—this fake, this imposter, this girl—you can train her as well as you like, Mr. Flynn, but I know the truth.”

“The truth!?” Flynn barked out a harsh laugh. “As if you nobles ever knew anything about the truth. Safe in your little palaces, far away from the hunger and the cold and the brutality that the rest of us suffered. And now you all flee to this city, this city of lights with its glitz and glamor and you try to make your lives over again, living in the past and living a lie, like you can escape how far you’ve fallen.”

Lucy felt like someone had dropped a ball of lead into her stomach. Had—had it all really been a lie, then? Flynn didn’t really—he’d never thought—

How could she have been so foolish? Of course she would start to think she was the princess. The suggestion was planted in her head. And what did she really, truly remember? A woman saving her after she’d been shot. That was the truth. But she could’ve gotten that jewel from anywhere. She could’ve been a servant who stole it. Everything she thought she remembered, it could so easily be lies.

Lies she’d told herself, to convince herself that she still had family waiting, that she still had a purpose, that she was important.

Who didn’t want to be important, after all? Who didn’t want to be special?

And she’d fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. What a naïve little girl she’d been. Flynn and Rufus must’ve had a field day when they learned she had amnesia. How perfect for their scheme.

“Yes,” Flynn spat. “Yes, I was going to train a girl, train the perfect princess and hand her over to you. Clearly you already know that, clearly you already know everything, oh so clever as you are up here in your high castle.”

Lucy thought she might throw up.

She couldn’t blame Rufus quite as much. He’d been desperate to get to Jiya. She couldn’t blame him for that, not entirely.

Not to mention Rufus hadn’t treated her the way Flynn had. He hadn’t held her, he hadn’t taken her hand, he hadn’t looked at her like—like—

She should’ve listened to Wyatt. She should’ve stayed in Leningrad, and far, far away from Garcia Flynn.

Lucy turned and hurried away as tears stung her eyes, not caring where she went, just that she got away from here.

 

* * *

 

“Is that what you’ve come for?” the duke demanded, glaring at him. “So that you can play a last cruel joke on a lonely old man?”

Flynn spat at the duke’s feet. “That’s what I think about nobles. Understand? That’s what I think about the selfish, delusional lot of you.” He took a step forward, using his height to his advantage. “I laughed at the thought of giving you a fake. But this girl—Lucy, she is real. She is the best person you will ever meet in your miserable life, and by God even if she wasn’t your granddaughter you’d adopt her after an hour of knowing her. I didn’t set out to bring you Lyusya, not the real one, I came to take your stupid money and laugh the whole way to the bank.

“But that girl is _real_. She’s the realist thing I’ve ever met in this goddamn world. There are some people who are—who are real because they burn bright and hot and they’re like—like a wildfire.” _People like Wyatt_ , he thought. “But there are people who are real because they’re soft, and genuine, and gentle, and that’s her. She couldn’t lie if her life depended on it.”

"I will not see yet another imposter! You can beg me on your knees—"

"Oh trust me, there's only one person I bow to, and it's not your high and mightiness. But you will see her."

"Clearly you don't understand the meaning of the word 'no'."

"If you would just listen for two seconds you stubborn old—"

“You stand here and try to foist that little snake on me—”

Rage ignited in him and Flynn stormed forward, causing the duke to stumble back. “You ever talk about her like that again—”

He honestly didn’t see the slap coming—and a backhanded one at that—and stars flashed in front of his eyes.

Flynn laughed, tasting blood from where he’d bit his tongue. “You know what? Fine. Wallow in your self-pity. Rot in your bitterness, alone. You don’t deserve her.”

The duke glared at him. “If you tried to sell her off to me like a parcel of groceries, you don’t deserve her either.”

Flynn grinned savagely at him. “Oh, trust me. I’m well aware of that.”

 

* * *

 

Lucy sat on the front steps to the ballet house. Rufus and Mason were arguing over by the carriages, and she didn’t want to stay, but she didn’t want to go off on her own, either.

She felt so incredibly small.

Feet thundered behind her and she looked up to see Flynn hurrying towards her. “Lucy.”

She stood up, fury fairly choking her, and slapped him full across the face.

Rufus and Mason stopped arguing to stare. Rufus’s mouth fell open.

Flynn shook it off, touching his mouth ruefully. “I guess you are related after all.”

She didn’t know what that meant, and she didn’t care. “You lied to me,” she hissed. “You and Rufus both! You never thought I was the princess. You let me believe it, you let me think—you were feeding me lies the whole time, training me, and for what? Rufus had to get to Jiya and I get it, I really do, but you? You!? Was it all so that you could have a laugh? So that you could get some twisted revenge on us?”

Flynn’s face fell, and then his expression morphed into horror. “Lucy, whatever you heard—”

“I heard enough,” she snapped. “Enough to know that you—God, you really are good, aren’t you? You really got me to believe you—” She cut herself off before she could damn herself any further. “I should’ve listened to Wyatt. He was right about you. You don’t care about anyone but yourself, you stupid selfish—bastard!”

Her throat closed up and she whirled around before Flynn could see her cry. He didn’t get to see her like that. She’d been vulnerable in front of him and he’d taken advantage of that.

“Lucy—”

“I’m going back to the hotel,” she told Rufus and Mason, marching past them. “And I’m packing my bags, and I’m—I’m leaving.” She didn’t know where she would go. She didn’t want to go back to Leningrad, but the only person she could think to help her besides this group was Wyatt, and that was where he was, all the way back in Russia.

She’d figure it out in the morning. Right now she just had to get away. She’d sleep on the street if she had to—she’d slept alone in barns and the woods all the way to Leningrad after she’d said goodbye to Darya. She’d make do.

Sometimes it felt like Darya was the only real thing about her life, the only thing she knew to be true. Lucy would find her way, if only to respect Darya’s kindness.

But not like this. Not lying to a lonely old man. Not being played like a fiddle.

“But Lucy—” Rufus started.

“Princess—” Mason said.

“I’m not your princess!” she yelled, whipping around to glare at them. “I’m Lucy, just Lucy, I’m nobody, _nobody_ , do you understand?”

Then she turned and hurried off into the night.


	8. Chapter 8

Jiya leapt up from her spot in front of the fire as she heard the front door open. It was only intermission, the ballet wasn’t over—why was everyone back so early?

Rufus came in first, looking tired, Mason behind him with his hand on Rufus’s shoulder. She could tell by the way their shoulders were slumped that it had gone wrong.

“Where’s Lucy?” she asked. Ethan hadn’t been cruel to the poor girl, had he? “Is Flynn with her?”

Rufus gave a semi-hysterical laugh. “Flynn’s the last person she wants to see right now.”

“But…” _But they were so in love_ was on the tip of her tongue. She swallowed it down. “I don’t understand.”

“She overheard Flynn giving Ethan a piece of his mind,” Mason said, his voice heavy. “She, ah, came to the understandable conclusion that Flynn and Rufus had been using her. She’s gone back to her hotel to pack.”

“Where will she go?”

“Lord knows. I’m not sure even she knows.”

“But Ethan—did he—”

“He wouldn’t see her,” Rufus snapped, walking over and kicking at a log in the fire, hands stuffed into his pockets. “He insists she’s an imposter. He’s convinced Lyusya died and there’s no way she could’ve made it.”

Well, that just wouldn’t do.

Jiya took Rufus’s arm. “Come on.”

“Wh—what?”

She grabbed her coat and a hat. “We’re going to see the duke. And we’re making him see her.”

Rufus was understandably concerned—as was Mason—that the duke would be furious at Jiya’s meddling and would get her into trouble, but Jiya wasn’t hearing it. That ridiculous man was going to see reason. All of these stupid men, Flynn included, were making it so complicated when it was really quite simple.

She marched them through the snow to the duke’s residence, where she proceeded to bang on the door. “Ethan!”

“He’s going to kill you,” Mason groaned.

“I don’t care,” Jiya snapped. She banged on the door again. “Ethan! You old wrinkly mummy!”

“Oh my God I love you,” Rufus blurted out.

The door was yanked open by a cantankerous Ethan, in his dressing gown. “Miss Marri, what on earth—”

Jiya strode inside, dragging Rufus with her. “Do you know who this is?” she demanded.

“No, but I can guess you’re intimate given that you’re currently holding hands for dear life.”

“Fantastic observation, Mr. Holmes.” Jiya presented Rufus to Ethan. “Ethan, this is Rufus. Rufus Pobeditel, my fiancé.”

Ethan paused. “I thought you said your fiancé was shot and murdered.”

“I thought he was. He was shot by the Bolsheviks, right in front of me at the train station. I saw them drag his body away.” Jiya kissed Rufus gently on the cheek. “But he’s _here_. He wasn’t dead, he was found and rescued and healed by Flynn, and now he’s fought all this way to get to me. He’s alive. He’s real. And we’re getting married and going to be sickeningly in love for the rest of our lives and you’ll all have to put up with us.”

Ethan looked like he wasn’t sure what to do with this. Jiya jabbed her finger into his chest. “So, your grace, if my love can come back from the dead, why can’t your granddaughter?”

Two spots of color appeared high on Ethan’s cheeks. “Lyusya was different.”

“How?” Jiya folded her arms. “Tell me how. I’ve met that girl, Ethan, and surely your head isn’t so far up your ass that you’ve decided to stop trusting my judgment. I interviewed every girl, every single girl, and none of them are like her. She looks just like her and even if she didn’t, she has no interest in fooling you. She’s lost and scared and alone and just wants a family. She’s not even sure if she is the princess, or if she wants to be! And you’ll condemn her before you’ll even give her a chance, after she risked her life, after Flynn and Rufus risked their lives, to get her here to you.”

“That man—”

“Flynn’s an asshole, yeah,” Rufus spoke up. “He’s a disaster and a half. He’s a pile of trash in a trench coat masquerading as a human being. But he’s also loyal, and brave, and selfless. And he’s willing to give up the person he loves so that she can have her family with you, so maybe cut him a little slack, okay?”

“Talk to her,” Jiya begged. “Please. Just once. If Rufus can come back then so can Lyusya. Speak with her. As a favor to me. I’ve never asked you for anything, Ethan, I’m asking you for this one thing, just please talk to her.”

Ethan glowered at her for a long moment. Jiya held her breath.

“…all right. Five minutes. That’s it.”

“She won’t come to you,” Mason said. “She’s, ah, angry at the perceived deception by Flynn and Rufus here. She’s at her hotel.”

Ethan drew himself up. “Very well. God knows I’ve been to less disreputable places than wherever she’s staying, and in pursuit of things far less noble.”

Jiya nearly sagged in relief.

Once he met Lucy, she was sure—he’d love her just as they did.

 

* * *

 

Lucy folded her meager belongings angrily, tears blurring her vision.

Stupid, stupid, stupid girl.

She’d bought into the idea and her damaged, empty mind had come up with the rest, bridging the gaps because that was what she wanted, she wanted a family and an explanation. If only she’d had the sense to ask Darya who she was, who she had been—but she hadn’t known how to ask and she hadn’t even been sure she wanted to know. She’d been barely coping, days and nights and awake and asleep blurring, she’d been hidden and hiding for her life, and then she’d been on the road and running towards and away from something.

But no more.

She was Lucy. And maybe she didn’t know who that person was but it was time to find out on her own, not finding the ghost of another girl to use as a crutch.

And not trusting the intentions of others, apparently.

There was the sound of the door opening and footsteps behind her—careful, measured. She sighed.

“Go away, Flynn, I’m not interested in whatever it is you have to say.”

“I suppose it’s a good thing I’m not Flynn, then.”

Lucy whirled around to see Grand Duke Feodoroff standing there. He wore a simple coat, his hair a bit windswept, not at all the imperious look he’d been sporting at the ballet.

She dropped into a curtsy. “Your grace.”

The duke eyed her up and down. “So you’re the imposter they hired.”

“They didn’t hire me,” Lucy snapped, standing up straight again. “I paid their way here to Paris, not the other way around.”

The duke raised an eyebrow. “I see. And where did you get this money?”

“None of your business,” Lucy replied.

“You will answer me, child.”

“Child?” Lucy laughed. “I admit, I’m naïve in some ways, as tonight’s proven. But a child? No. There are no children left after the revolution.”

“Hmm. You don’t speak like her.”

“You don’t speak like the Grandpapa I remember,” Lucy shot back. “But then perhaps both our memories are only lying to us. How much of what you remember is real and how much is a fantasy you built up in your head, your grace?”

“And yet you came here anyway to pass yourself off as my granddaughter.”

“I came to find my family. It was suggested you might be it. I have no interest in lying to you or causing you pain, so please, do me the favor of not condemning me before you know me. And do me the further favor of getting out of my room.”

“You dare to speak—”

“I dare to speak to anyone I want however I want.” Lucy raised her chin up. “Blame it on the Romanov blood, or on my being an upstart child of the revolution, whichever suits your fancy.”

The duke paused. “Your wit is certainly like hers. She could be rather cutting, you know, when she wanted to be. Tell me, when did you first learn how to ride a horse?”

“If I have to be quizzed one more time I shall be sick,” Lucy declared, folding her arms. “If that’s what you came here to do then with all due respect, get out. I’m not going to prove myself to you by answering what the name of my horse was or who my relatives are or where we spent our summers.”

“Then how do you expect me to believe that you’re the princess? How am I to know you’re not another little snake who’s trying to trick me by pretending she doesn’t care?”

Lucy groaned in frustration. “Do you even hear yourself? You’ll say whatever to convince yourself I’m not the princess. If I went to you on bended knee begging for you to remember me you’d say I wasn’t Lyusya because I was too eager and simpering. If I tell you I’m not her and to go to Hell, you’ll say I’m not Lyusya because I’m trying some kind of reverse psychology on you. What sort of life have you led that you can’t take a woman at her word when she says get out of her hotel room and leave her alone? I have no interest in stringing along a lonely man, especially not one as cold as you.”

“Cold?”

“Yes, cold.” Lucy dared to take a step forward. “Maybe instead of trying to quiz me and make me feel low, you should be thinking about yourself. I don’t agree with Flynn’s harsh words but I agree with his sentiment. What sort of person have you become, Ethan Feodoroff? I think you don’t want your granddaughter to return because you’re ashamed of who you’ve become. And not because of who you sleep with or your lifestyle but because you know that you’ve hardened yourself and you’ve shut yourself away and you know that the girl you remember, the girl you loved, wouldn’t want that for you. You’re ashamed, and so you don’t want me to be her, because it means you have to face up to that.”

The duke stared at her for a long moment. “My lifestyle,” he said at last.

Lucy bit her lip. “I—I’m sorry… that was a slip of the tongue.”

“How did you know of that. Who told you. Mason? Jiya?”

“Nobody told me.” Lucy squared her shoulders and took out her necklace, holding up the key. “It’s why you had to stay in Paris, you told me. When I told you I wanted to kiss a girl since boys were stupid, you told me that you liked to kiss boys, and that was why you couldn’t stay in Russia with me. But that you would bring me to Paris… and then you didn’t.”

The duke stared, eyes wide and face pale, at the key. “Your father and I had a falling out. He wouldn’t let me return—and then it was too late. I—I failed in my promise.” He looked at her. “Do you know what that key goes to?”

“No. It was all I had on me, besides my clothes and a diamond caught in my corset. That’s how I paid for the trip here.”

The duke dug into his coat pocket and pulled out a small green music box, the enamel on it and the gold styling matching that of her key. “May I?”

Lucy took off the necklace and handed the key to him. The duke paused.

“Here.” He handed her the box and key. “You try it.”

Lucy stared at it for a moment.

_Dancing bears, painted wings… things I almost remember…_

“Soon you’ll be safe with me…” she sang, the words flowing from her lips as she fit the key into the lock. One, two, three to the right, then press on the mechanism on the bottom of the box. “Once upon a December.”

The lid sprang open and the music filled the room. The song that had lodged in her heart and haunted her all this time.

Lucy looked up to see the duke in tears. “It’s our lullaby,” she said.

Ethan gently cupped her face in his hands. He smelled like cinnamon and oranges. “Lyusya.”

She dropped the music box and key onto the bed as Ethan pulled her into his arms, clasping her tightly. Lucy found that her own eyes were wet, her whole body shaking. “Grandpapa.”

“My darling girl. My dearest. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I stayed away, I broke my promise.”

“I’m here now.” Lucy couldn’t stop crying. She felt lighter than air. “I’m here, I’m safe, I’m okay.”

Ethan kissed the top of her head. “I told no one else about—about my preferences, but—I supposed a member of the household might have guessed. But that and—and the key, and you know the song—I’m so sorry. I should have given you a chance.”

Lucy wiped at her eyes. “I don’t remember everything. I’m sorry. Most of it is horror. Nightmares.”

Ethan took her hands, squeezing them. “Don’t you worry, my darling. You’ll remember the good things in time.”

“That’s what Jiya said.”

“Ah, yes. You have her to thank for this.” Ethan grimaced. “She dragged that boy of hers in front of me and told me that if he lived, then you could have as well.”

“He’s a good man,” Lucy blurted out. “Rufus. He loves her, he’ll do right by her.”

“And your man?”

Lucy turned away, busying herself with the music box and key. “He’s not my man.”

“His words suggested differently.”

Fire ignited in her chest and she struggled to keep her voice even. “If he suggested there was anything between us, he was wrong. I never so much as kissed him.”

“I meant more his insistence that I see you.”

Lucy paused. She turned around slowly, fitting the necklace back around her neck. “What do you mean?”

“He had some rather choice words for me,” Ethan replied. “And just about threatened my life when I had some less-than-flattering things to say about you. I believe his words were, you were the best person I would ever meet in my life, and that if I wasn’t related to you I’d still be adopting you within the hour, and that you were the most real thing he’d ever met in this world.”

Lucy found herself suddenly sitting on the bed. “He—what?”

Ethan tilted his head, a habit that Lucy realized she herself had. “Did you not know?”

“Communication has never been Flynn’s strong suit.”

“I would’ve thought it plain the man’s in love with you.”

Lucy drew herself up. “You’re mistaken. He’s in love with someone else. A… a man. A good man, if a lost and confused one.”

Ethan regarded her shrewdly. She suddenly recalled him looking at her like that when she’d pulled a prank on her brothers and was trying to play innocent. “And you think the human heart has the capacity to only love one person at a time?”

Seeing as she was desperately in love with Flynn but also felt an odd and particular softness for Wyatt—it wasn’t love but she could sense that it was the potential for it—she was hardly anyone to judge. “No.” She swallowed, cleared her throat. “But he lied to me. He was in this for the money and for—”

“Lucy, my child, that’s where you’re wrong.”

She paused. “He said…”

“He told me he was in this for the money originally,” Ethan told her. “But he abandoned that plan.”

“He… but…”

“Of course one will have to offer the reward to him to be certain,” Ethan went on. “But I’ll eat my hat if he actually takes it.”

Hope fluttered in her chest—dangerous, deceptive hope. “I have you, Grandpapa. What more could I possibly want?”

Ethan looked skeptical at that, but he held out his arm to her. “Come. I… call it foolish, but I still have a room set up for you. It’s a bit… outdated. I had it decorated with a young girl in mind. But perhaps…”

She took his arm. “I’ll love it.” It was made for her by someone who loved her, and that was all she needed.

Ethan kissed the top of her head again. “I have missed you, my little one.”

Lucy’s throat closed up and she had to clear it again before she spoke. At last, she felt unconditionally loved. “I’ve missed you too, Grandpapa.”

 

* * *

 

Wyatt double-checked the gun was loaded.

 _There is nothing but duty._ His father’s words rang in his ears.

Was this why his father had drunk himself to death? Was that the price ‘duty’ made you pay? Drinking away the shame as your country moved on without so much as a thank you for the blood you’d put on your hands?

_Serve your country above all else._

_We are all servants to Mother Russia._

_The man who serves himself has no place here._

_You think of what your country needs, not about what you want._

Was this all that he was meant for?

_Pretty sure we’re the same age. So you can drop the ma’am._

The monarchy had no place anymore. The few rich ruling over the starving poor had no place anymore. The feudal system and the government of inheritance by accident of blood had no place anymore. Government posts belonged to people who’d earned them. Wealth was distributed equally.

_If it means that much to you, then yes, I promise I’ll be careful._

The old ways had to die. The old ways were corrupt. The Romanovs were a symbol of that corruption, and symbols had power. So long as the symbol remained the people who believed in that corruption would exploit it.

_Would you hurt me?_

If it was learned a Romanov escaped, then monarchs around the world would grow bold, they’d oppress their people again. Everyone would romanticize Lyusya’s tragic story and they would forget the way the Romanovs had exploited their people and lived in lazy luxury, ignoring the problems of poverty and corruption just outside their doors.

_We can’t have her, Wyatt, neither of us. But we’re out of there, we’re free, we’re in Paris. We can get to America from here or England, anywhere you want._

He tucked the gun into his holster at his belt and grabbed his coat and hat, slipping them on.

_You’re not supposed to do anything, Wyatt, you don’t owe your country your soul like this!_

If he wasn’t his duty, if he wasn’t a servant of the people, if he wasn’t a soldier… then who was he?

_You’re not supposed to do anything, Wyatt._

_Would you hurt me?_

He walked out the door and headed for the duke's residence.


	9. Chapter 9

Flynn stood on the bridge, watching the snow fall.

Wyatt was gone. Lucy was gone. Rufus had Jiya and Mason now.

And that left him… well. Where did that leave him?

Alone, again, he supposed. Funny how just a few months ago that had been all he’d ever wanted.

“I suspected you might be brooding out here.”

Flynn turned to see, of all people, Mason standing there.

“How’d you find me?”

“I thought about where I would be,” Mason said. He walked up and peered over the rail of the bridge at the cold water. “Well, after you’d drunk yourself stupid at bars the last few days.”

Flynn had in fact been bar hopping for three days, but he wasn’t about to validate Mason by telling him that. “What do you want?”

Mason sighed in a rather put-upon fashion. “You know you aren’t the only one who knows what it’s like to mess up, and to be lonely.”

“Oh?” Flynn asked sardonically.

“Did Rufus ever tell you about how we came to be friends?” Mason leaned his elbows on the railing. “No, I suppose he wouldn’t have. He’s rather loyal. He wanted to go out and find you himself until I prevailed upon him to let me do it. Jiya’s rather anxious about letting him out of her sight at the moment.

“I made some business dealings. Bad business dealings, ones that put me in hot water with the wrong people. And I was living the high life for a while, friends with everyone, including the Romanovs. But I knew what was breathing down my neck and that it was only a matter of time until I lost everything, and I figured… I would simply enjoy it while I could and then hopefully die with some measure of dignity.

“And of course, what happened when the wolves came for me? My so-called friends fled. Only Ethan insisted I come with him to Russia, to buy time to figure out what to do. I knew his secret and so he helped me with mine but I knew he couldn’t protect me from what was coming. I was alone, I was hating myself for my poor choices, for my own stupidity, for my hedonism. And then this little servant boy found my business papers and was cleaning them up for me—and of all things sat down and began writing down how to fix my accounts.

“He was a wizard with numbers. I couldn’t believe it. Rufus saved my businesses and my life, and in the process he saved me. I had never… I never really understood love. I had any woman I wanted in my bed at night, or more than one, even, but my mother had been an opium addict and my father had been too busy with business to bother with me and my governesses never stayed long enough for me to truly connect with them. I didn’t understand this deep connection everyone else seemed to feel.

“Then Rufus came along and I… I loved him, I dare say as a father should love a child. As a brother should love. It was unexpected and I hated myself every day, every day for going back to Paris with Ethan and leaving him behind. I thought I had left this boy I loved as my son to die. Taking Jiya in… it was the least I could do as penance for that.

“But then just the other day, my boy comes back to me. He’s a man, and there is sadness in his eyes that it kills me to see, but he’s alive and he’s real and I get a second chance with him. I don’t have to be lonely anymore.

“You messed up, fine, sure, we all mess up. But that girl loves you. And she’s a forgiving soul. She’ll take you back, if you just swallow your damn self-loathing and you go and you make it right.”

Flynn snorted. “You know what I was as a child, Mason? A kitchen boy. My mother was a genius but God forbid she get into university, she had to settle for being a seamstress and a rabble rouser. I’m no one, and she’s about to be the… the ultimate someone. Every royal, every millionaire in the world will want her hand. She’s going to rise like a meteor and there’s no place for me there.”

“It’s the 1920s, Flynn. I dare say a deposed princess could dare to be with a kitchen boy.”

“Could she? When she could marry a royal who isn’t deposed or a man with wealth, either of whom could protect her better than I could?”

“No one could protect her better than the man who loves her.”

“Other men will love her. It’s who she is. Everyone loves her. I’d bring scandal to her, even if we ignore the…” Flynn cleared his throat. “Even if she forgives the fact that I love someone else as well as her.”

Mason raised his eyebrows. “Rufus told me your girl died.”

“She did. I… there was another. I asked them to run away with me, since I couldn’t be with Lucy. They… felt their life led them down a different path.”

Mason eyed him shrewdly. “I know what the duke is, Flynn. I’ve kept his secret for twenty years. I’m not going to spill yours.”

Flynn snorted. “Am I that obvious?”

“It was your pronoun use that tipped me off, frankly.”

“It doesn’t matter. He feels he has his duty, and he never truly… accepted the idea, I think, of loving another man. But I can’t risk that coming up as a scandal for Lucy. Or my past. If she accepts who she is she’ll enter a world where I can’t follow. I just can’t. Even with all that we say things have changed, that the class differences are gone, they aren’t really, Mason. You know that. Given your…” Flynn coughed.

“Given my skin color, yes,” Mason replied. “Why do you think I stay in Paris despite being British? It’s not perfect… and God help me if I ever have to go to America.” He shuddered. “But I don’t see why you can’t overcome that.”

“I highly doubt her grandfather would approve of this.”

“Ethan would be the last person to condemn anyone for following their heart in matters of love.”

“He might if his granddaughter chose the man who spat at his feet.”

Mason sighed. “So that’s it. You’re going to let society, and her grandfather, get in between the two of you. You won’t even give her a chance to decide to choose you for herself. You’ll take that choice away from her.”

Flynn’s throat felt tight and he looked away from Mason’s genteel and yet unwavering gaze.

Mason pushed off the rail. “Don’t make the mistake that I did, Flynn. If you love someone, you let them know it and you stay with them, no matter what. You don’t leave them. If you do… you might not realize until too late how much they need you.”

With that, he gave Flynn a nod and began to walk away.

Flynn’s heart twisted. Maybe Mason was right. If he left Lucy now… she hadn’t heard the full story, she hadn’t given him a chance to be honest with her and apologize, and if he left without getting the chance to lay out all the facts in front of her… he didn’t want her to regret her decision and he had a feeling he’d regret not telling her how he felt.

God, same with Wyatt. Had he ever truly told Wyatt how he felt? Had he ever tried to understand or to help Wyatt, or had he just yelled at him and walked away, both times?

…oh no.

Oh _no_.

Wyatt!

“Mason!” Flynn ran after him. Mason paused, looking concerned at what had to be the crazy look in Flynn’s eyes. “Mason, we have to get to Lucy right now. Right now, her life is in danger!”

“She’s at Ethan’s, he’s invited reporters to a press conference to announce her survival and return.”

“Fuck.” Wyatt would have heard about that. “We have to go, we have to get to her!”

He had to save Lucy—and stop Wyatt from making a horrible mistake.

 

* * *

 

It was surprisingly easy to slip into the house through the servant’s quarters and then get up the stairs. The first few rooms he’d peered into had been the wrong ones, but at last, he got to the right one.

To Lucy’s room.

No, not Lucy. Lyusya. The princess.

She was sitting by herself near the window, gazing out, wearing a dark burgundy dress. Her hair was all down up, and she looked… more regal than he had ever seen her, but also sad.

He must have made a noise because she stood and turned, starting a little upon seeing him. “Wyatt.”

He swallowed. “Your highness.”

Lucy gave a kind of half-laugh at that, in self-deprecation. “Ah, yes. I… I hate how everyone will be calling me that now.”

Wyatt’s heart ached. Why did she have to be so good? “Lucy…” He dared to take another step into the room, closing the door behind him. “Tell me, honestly. Are you lying? About who you are?”

His pulse was thundering in his ears. Lucy gazed at him sadly for a moment, then shook her head.

“Sometimes I wish I was. But no.”

“It’s okay if you are. It might…” _It might save you._

Lucy drew herself up. “Why. Do you not want me to be her?” Her gaze flicked down to Wyatt’s belt at his waist, where his gun rested in its holster. “So that you can have an excuse not to shoot me?”

“You know why I’m here.”

“You were investigating Flynn and me. Why else would you be here? It wasn’t to declare your feelings for him although God knows he’d probably be elated to hear that.”

That stopped Wyatt cold. “Flynn doesn’t—I was—it’s not like that between us.”

“The way he talked about you suggests otherwise. He’s in love with you, Wyatt, don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

“He’s in love with you.”

Tears sprang into Lucy’s eyes and she turned away. “He has an odd way of showing it, if that’s the case.”

“He is, he told me he is. He begged me—he told me if anything happened to you he’d kill me.”

Lucy turned back to look at him. “He said that?”

Wyatt nodded.

He wasn’t sure why he was, of all things, reassuring Lucy that Flynn cared about her. Maybe because he wanted her last moments to be filled with the knowledge that she was loved.

“And now you’re here to kill me.” She tilted her head, walking across the room to him. “Why?”

“If you’re not the princess, if you declare yourself to be an imposter, I can save you, I promise. Just say you were lying and this whole thing will be over.”

“Why, so you can drag me back to Russia where I’ll rot in a cell for the rest of my life? Or be sent to Siberia?”

“No, so you can go free! So I don’t have to do this!” His hand flew to his gun, almost without thought. “Paris is no place for a good and loyal Russian.”

“We are _both_ good and loyal Russians.”

“I don’t want to do this, just—let me take you home.”

“This is my home now!”

“This isn’t a game, Lucy!”

“No, it’s not.”

“Do you really think history, the Russian people, want you to have lived?”

“Yes! Don’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want.”

“All that you have at the end of the day is what you want, Wyatt!”

“The Romanovs were given everything and gave back nothing, they destroyed our country, until we rose up and destroyed them.”

“All except one.” Lucy drew herself up. “I will not let you or anyone else tell me who I should or shouldn’t be, Wyatt Logan, and you shouldn’t let anyone do that to you, either!”

“Just say it, Lucy, say it and I can help you.”

“No.” Her voice was like thunder.

Wyatt pulled out the gun, hating that his hand wasn’t shaking, shaking like his breath in his chest. “I’m my father’s son, I have to finish this!”

“In me you see them,” Lucy said, shaking her head, her eyes wet. “See their faces in mine. Hear their screams, Wyatt, because I hear them every single night, my sister every single night in my sleep!”

“For the last time, who are you!”

“I am the Grand Duchess Lyusya Nikolaevna Romanova! I am the last of the Romanovs, and if I am dying then I am dying as myself and no one else!”

She strode forward, grabbing the gun.

“Do it!” Lucy pressed the muzzle of the gun right up against her heart, the words pushed out through clenched teeth. “Do it, Wyatt, just do it. Put me with the rest of my family, go _on_ , do it. You all say the Romanovs didn’t know what was good for Russia, for their people, well they are my people, Russia is mine, and if my death is what’s good for her then go ahead and _do it_.”

His finger was on the trigger, if he so much as twitched—

“Put me back with my brothers and my sister, put me with my parents, do it, _do it_!” Lucy grabbed his shoulder. “Be like your father, be like every other person who sold their souls for this revolution, this bloodbath that brought us all nothing in the end, do it and be fucking free of the ghost of the Romanovs if that’s what you’re so desperate for.”

The cold metal was pressing right up against her heart, no corset sewn with jewels to stop it, no sister in front of her as a shield, no kind woman to lie and drag her to safety.

“We have a past to bury, Lucy,” he whispered. “There’s no choice, here, just duty.”

“And here I thought the revolution was to give everyone a choice in their lives,” she replied softly. “We can’t bury the past, Wyatt. We have to think about what we’ve done. How else will we make a better future? How else will we not mend our mistakes?”

It was simple, it was so simple, his duty, do his duty do what was right for the country do what was right it was his duty it was simple it was—

He didn’t want to be his father. He wanted to be someone Darya was proud of. Someone who could look at himself in the mirror.

He wanted.

He _wanted_.

The gun clattered to the floor and a sob, a sound that felt like it had been building up his entire life, ever since his father had first pressed a gun into his hand, ever since he’d first heard of the revolution, ever since—since he could remember—exploded out of him.

Immediately warm arms wrapped around him. “Shh, it’s all right. It’s all right.”

Wyatt knew he had no right to seek comfort from her. Not when he’d just tried—when he’d almost—but he did, he clung to her in return, and let her hold him as he sobbed.

 

* * *

 

Lucy helped Wyatt sit down. There was time before the press conference. Mason and Rufus and Jiya were all doing the damage control beforehand. They had time.

She didn’t love Wyatt, not in the way that she loved Flynn. But Flynn loved him, and she could feel… well she couldn’t help but feel softness for the poor boy when he was clearly so lost and so confused and so hurt. And he was rather pretty, and she had liked him when she’d met him, had been drawn to him, had felt flutters in her stomach. She liked him still, and she thought she could love him, in time, and she was certainly willing to put up with him if it meant she got to be with Flynn.

If Flynn even truly wanted her the way that Wyatt said he did.

Footsteps thundered down the hall and then her door burst open to reveal none other than the object of her thoughts, his chest heaving, hair flopping into his face, his cheeks red from exertion.

Flynn took in the scene. Looked at her holding Wyatt as Wyatt quietly cried. Looked at the gun on the floor.

“You look like you’re going to pass out,” Lucy noted.

“I might,” Flynn replied, and then he staggered to a chair and sat down as she saw his legs give out.

Lucy gently ran her hand through Wyatt’s hair. “What are you doing here?”

Wyatt looked up, saw it was Flynn, and immediately went pale.

“I thought—” Flynn gestured at the gun. “But I see… you two reconciled your differences.”

He stood up carefully, like he was testing to see if his legs could hold his weight. “I’m—sorry. I thought you were in danger. I’ll—you have the press waiting I’ll get out of your hair…”

Lucy gently detangled herself from Wyatt and stood. “Garcia.”

Flynn nodded at her. “Princess.”

Then he was gone.

Oh, no. No, no, no, that idiotic man wasn’t getting away from her this time.

“Stay here,” she ordered Wyatt, as if the boy was in any state to go anywhere, and then tore after Flynn, her fancy dress be damned.

She wasn’t letting him go until they spoke their hearts, for once, instead of just their minds.

 

* * *

 

Flynn felt like he couldn’t properly see where he was going. He’d been prepared to throw himself in front of a bullet, to tackle Wyatt, to plead, to do any number of things to save Lucy’s life.

Instead he found her comforting Wyatt as Wyatt cried.

The two of them made an oddly attractive picture, the blond and the brunette, their similar heights, Wyatt’s blue eyes and Lucy’s dark ones. Flynn’s heart had just about given out, first from relief and then from realizing that dammit, he was still attracted to both of them.

But she was all right. Lucy was safe. Wyatt hadn’t done it, thank God, and he wouldn’t do it, and Lucy would be okay.

And, well, clearly he’d just imposed on a private moment so… he left. Tried to make his way back down the stairs even as the world still felt a little off-kilter. He’d sprinted the entire way to the duke’s house and fear had been beating at his chest from the inside the whole time and it was now doing a number on his ability to breathe.

“Garcia!”

He turned and saw Lucy, in her rather fetching burgundy dress, running after him, uncaring that she had to hike her skirts up.

She grabbed his arms as Flynn swayed a little, the adrenaline still wearing off. “Don’t go, please.”

“I thought you didn’t want to—”

“I thought you didn’t love me,” Lucy blurted out. “I thought you hated me and were lying the entire time, playing me, and so I slapped you because—because I never wanted to lie to anyone but also because I’m—”

“Lucy don’t do this.” He took her hands, squeezing them. “You can’t be a princess and be with a… with someone like me. You have everything.”

“Everything except you.” Lucy took a deep breath. “You’re right, if I do this I win everything and I just lose one person and to most people maybe that’s a worthy trade off but not to me. Not when you’re the person I’m losing. I—I love you.”

His heart screeched to a halt.

“I love you,” she whispered. “And Wyatt loves you, and we want you, please—I like him, and I certainly wouldn’t mind kissing him, and I don’t mind at all that you love him so long as you love me too, and I think you do, Wyatt says you do, but Garcia I—none of it’s—it’s all worthless to me. I came to find a family, not a throne, and I don’t want the glitz and the glamor I want you.” She bit her lip, her eyes growing damp. “Please say you want me too.”

Flynn swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the lump in his throat. “There’s nothing I want more.”

Lucy gave a sob and flung herself into his arms, kissing him for all she was worth. Flynn wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back, feeling like his heart was flying out of his chest and into her, lodging there to stay forever. He kissed her, he kissed her, he kissed her, until Lucy was smiling too hard and they just held each other, swaying on the spot, their foreheads pressed together.

The door to her room opened and Flynn looked up as Wyatt stepped out—looking rather furtive and probably trying to sneak down the other way without them noticing.

Lucy turned and looked over her shoulder. “Come here.”

Wyatt looked at her, took a step, then looked at Flynn.

Flynn gently set Lucy down and held out his hand.

Wyatt walked over to him tentatively, like a dog that had eaten the shoes and knew it had done wrong, but he reached out his hand and curled his fingers around Flynn’s. He looked like he wasn’t even breathing.

Flynn pulled him in, holding him tightly, and Wyatt gave a sob and clung to him, burying his face in Flynn’s neck.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry for all of it. I’m sorry.”

Flynn kissed his temple. “I’m sorry, too. I wasn’t—I could have been—”

“No, it was me, I was…” Wyatt shook his head and slammed their mouths together and Flynn wasn’t sure which one of them was shaking, it could have been both of them, and then Lucy was in his arms as well and he never wanted to stop touching either of them.

“I love you,” Flynn told him. “I should’ve said it. You were never… you were always important to me.”

Wyatt looked astounded and lighthearted and relieved. “I love you, too.”

Flynn looked over at Lucy, who kissed the corner of his mouth. “I love you,” he told her. “Officially.”

“Mm, how lucky for me.” She eyed Wyatt, who blushed. “And what about you?”

“Me?” Wyatt looked from one to the other, his eyes wide. “I—I mean—I just tried—I understand if you don’t want—”

Lucy gently took his face in her hands. “You didn’t,” she assured him. “And you won’t. You want to be free like we do, don’t you?”

Wyatt glanced at Flynn, an aching hope in his eyes, and nodded.

“I won’t ever stop Flynn from being with who he loves. And…” Lucy leaned in, brushing her mouth to Wyatt’s cheek. “I think you rather fancied me, once upon a time.”

Wyatt looked like someone had dumped cold water on him. “I—I mean—yes, um, that was a thing, yes, that I tried.”

Lucy winked at him. “Lucky you, I’m the forgiving type. And you are quite pretty, I approve of Flynn’s taste.”

Wyatt’s face was such a deep red it almost matched Lucy’s dress.

Lucy looked over at Flynn. “There is… one thing I have to deal with. If you’ll wait for me?”

He nodded, taking her hand and bringing it up to kiss the knuckles. “Yes.” He would always wait for her.

Lucy blushed, turning her hand so that her fingers could softly brush against his lips. “I won’t be long.” Her smile turned mischievous. “Perhaps you two can use this time to get reacquainted.”

Then she pulled away, turning to walk down the stairs.

Flynn looked over at Wyatt, who was still blushing. “What exactly happened in there between the two of you?”

“…would you believe me if I said nothing?” Wyatt hazarded.

Flynn glared at him.

Wyatt coughed. “I—I almost did something—but I didn’t want to. You were right about that, and you were right that I couldn’t, when the time finally came to make a choice. I don’t want to be my father and I don’t want to be a cog in a machine and I don’t see how killing an innocent woman can benefit Russia. And I—I care about her. As you know. I just couldn’t… I couldn’t be… I’m a soldier but I’m not, I won’t be a killer. I want to be someone that the people I love are proud of. Someone Darya would be proud of, someone… someone you can be proud of.”

He looked up, looked Flynn in the eye. “I was too harsh on you and I said things—I was vulnerable with you and it felt like you betrayed me and took advantage of that so I lashed out at you but—but I need you. I need someone to help me figure out who I am. And I like who I am with you. And since Lucy seems to be okay with it, I want… I want to stay, with you, go with you wherever you go. If you’ll let me.”

Flynn kissed him softly. “That’s all I want.” Just the two people he loved with him.

That was all he could ever want.


	10. Chapter 10

Lucy took a moment to pause, to recalibrate, to take a deep breath as she approached the doors to her grandfather’s parlor.

Then she knocked.

“Come in,” Ethan called.

Lucy opened the door and stepped inside the room. Ethan stood, smiling at her. “My darling, you’re an absolute picture.”

He walked over to her, taking her hands. “But where is your crown?”

“I won’t be wearing it.” Lucy took a deep breath. “Grandpapa. I love you. I love you so much. And I don’t—I don’t want to be parted from you.”

“We won’t ever be, my little one.”

“But what if I don’t want to be a princess?” Lucy asked, her heart in her throat and her breath feeling thin and fragile, like spun glass. “What if I want to be with a man who… who I couldn’t be with, as a princess?”

“Why can’t you be with him?”

Lucy swallowed. “He’s a commoner. A criminal in Russia. And he has a big enough heart that he loves—he loves me, and another. A man. A man that I could love, I think, too. A man that I like, that I had a bit of a… the beginnings of a flirtation with.”

“I see.” Ethan sighed, releasing her hands. “A commoner we might be able to swing but… with a criminal record, and I couldn’t ask—after spending my life hiding the men I’ve been with, I could never ask you to hide your second man, or for him to hide the man. It’s like hiding half of yourself. I couldn’t do that to you.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” Lucy said, grabbing her grandfather’s arm. “Not now that I’ve just found you. Is there any way…”

“There will be a great hullabaloo,” Ethan said carefully. “It would be wise, I think, for you to avoid that. But you have always wanted to see the world, have you not? You were a studious child as well, perhaps there is a university that would wish to take you. And once all the noise has died down… Paris will always be waiting for you. I will be waiting for you.”

Lucy felt her eyes growing misty again. “You—you truly mean that? You’d let me go?”

“Only for a little while. You deserve to be a normal girl, to live a life of your choosing. Whether that’s school or travel or whatever you wish. I’m not going anywhere.”

She hugged her grandfather tightly, a few tears falling free as he hugged her back. “We’ll be together in Paris again soon,” she whispered.

“Yes. Yes, we will be,” he promised her. “After all, if any city is welcoming of unusual couplings… they did invent the phrase _ménage à trois_.”

Lucy laughed, pulling away to smile up at him. “Thank you.”

“I would hate for you to have to hide as I have, or to carry the burdens of state—especially when Russia has no interest in such a thing. I fear the political ramifications of your reappearance would be far more complicated and unfair to you than any of us could wish. All I care about is that you are happy, my darling. The rest will fall into place.”

Lucy kissed him on the cheek. “I am happy, Grandpapa. I’m so very happy.”

She suspected she was only going to get happier.

 

* * *

 

_Telegram from Master Sergeant Wyatt Logan_

_General sir. Have found girl. Duke has declared her imposter. Wants all rumors of Lyusya stopped. Personally agree. Should announce to Russian people rumor must die. There is only the future. There was never a Lyusya. She was a dream. A dream that only time will fade. The new order has no need for fairy tales. Case closed._

_In related news am not returning._

* * *

 

Jiya, Rufus, and Mason all watched anxiously as Ethan exited the press room, ignoring all further questions. The noise from the room was shut out as the duke closed the door behind him.

“Well?” Jiya asked, gripping Rufus’s hand.

“They believed me,” Ethan replied, smiling softly in relief. “Lyusya is officially dead.”

And now Lucy could live. With Flynn.

And Wyatt, because apparently something had happened with that. Rufus didn’t know the full story and frankly he didn’t want to. Just so long as they were happy.

“Now that announcement’s out of the way,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind that Jiya and I have an announcement.”

“It wouldn’t have anything to do with where you three disappeared to this morning?” Ethan asked.

Jiya held up her left hand, which she’d been carefully hiding behind the fold of her skirt. “Ta-da!”

Ethan clasped his hand to his heart. “My dear girl. It’s nothing less than you deserve.”

“We are having so much sex,” Jiya declared.

“And you ruined it,” Mason said, making a face.

“We were already having sex, Connor,” Rufus told him.

“I really don’t need to know any of this.”

“This calls for champagne,” Ethan announced. “A toast to the two of you, and the three who are unfortunately not joining us tonight.”

“Where are they going?” Jiya asked.

“Flynn said he’d write,” Rufus said.

“Lucy promised the same,” Ethan added. “But they didn’t say where, I think to prevent any nosy reporters finding out, just in case.”

“Wherever they are,” Rufus vowed, “they’re going to be landing themselves into trouble, mark my words. It’s how it is with Flynn.”

Ethan got out the glasses and poured them all some champagne. “To all of our lovebirds. You young ones who gave me hope again. May the future be nothing but bright for you all.”

Rufus grinned at Jiya, his love, who grinned right back at him. “I can’t see the future,” she said, “but I can guarantee that’s exactly what it’ll be.”

He kissed her, tasting champagne and possibilities.

 

* * *

 

Lucy stood on the deck of the ship, Wyatt’s coat firmly wrapped around her. She could see the stars so clearly from here.

She heard footsteps come up behind her—two pairs, both of which she’d come to recognize instantly.

“You’re going to freeze,” Wyatt said. Wyatt, she had discovered, was a worrywart.

Flynn wrapped his arms around her from behind and she sank back into his solid warmth. “Not with you two here, I won’t,” she replied. “I think I can see the shore.”

“No, you can’t. It’s pitch black.”

“Yes, I can.”

“Children, children,” Flynn said mildly, pulling Wyatt into his side.

Lucy took Wyatt’s hand. She was so in love with Flynn it hurt but oh, she was definitely starting to see why Flynn looked at Wyatt with that soft, unending fondness.

They were starting with America, the farthest place from Russia they could think of. They’d see New York, and Boston, take it all in, maybe go west on a train and witness all that rugged beauty. See Chicago where there’d been The World’s Columbian Exposition. Perhaps go all the way to Hollywood, where those moving pictures were making such a splash.

They’d get back to Europe eventually. Wyatt wanted to see his father’s homeland of Scotland. Flynn wanted to see his homeland southwest of the Balkans. And Lucy wanted to see Greece and Italy, and Egypt, the cradles of the classical world.

Eventually they would get back to Paris. She intended to spend weeks and months and years with her grandfather to make up for what they’d lost.

But it didn’t matter—they had time.

Lucy turned her head and kissed Flynn on the jaw. He looked down at her. “What was that for?”

“I love you,” she replied. “That’s what that’s for.”

She squeezed Wyatt’s hand. Perhaps she’d say that to him, too, before long. Wyatt squeezed back, leaning his head against Flynn’s shoulder.

They were finally together, finally free. And even as the dream of Princess Lyusya faded, glowing dim as an ember… the new reality of Lucy was born.

She knew who she was, now.

And she was done looking back.


End file.
